Analysis by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) has enabled what it has described as “ground-breaking legislation” to be passed regarding European truck cab designs.
TRL predicts the move could prevent up to 1,200 deaths or serious injuries of pedestrians and cyclists over the next ten years.
EU lawmakers voted in February 2019 to relax restrictions on truck cab lengths, in return for the adoption of cab design requirements that improve aerodynamics in a bid to reduce the 4,200 truck associated road deaths and serious injuries experienced by European cyclists and pedestrians each year.
TRL compiled a report which analysed a range of vehicle safety features and enabled EU regulators to assess the cost-effectiveness of the range of potential policy options and prioritise them based on their potential to improve the safety of longer truck cab designs for vulnerable road users (VRUs).
TRL said the principle aim of the project was to analyse the impact of “enhanced truck front ends” on VRU and car passenger safety.
It is expected new European truck cab designs will include larger windscreens to improve driver vision, as well as using tapered cabs to both enable increasingly streamlined front ends that will reduce fuel usage and CO2 emissions and better deflect VRUs away from the truck wheels during a collision.
“Excitingly, the benefits of such ‘enhanced truck front end designs’ may be felt in the very near future – with longer truck cab designs permitted on Europe’s roads from 1st September 2020,” said Dr Phil Martin, Head of Biomechanics at TRL.
