ESC Symposium calls for commitment in promoting safety technologies

Date: 04 July 2008

High level ambassadors underline the importance of ESC in cutting accident rates at recent event in Brussels

ERTICO CEO Hermann Meyer joins Commissioner Reding, Zita Gurmai MEP, Ivan Hodac, Secretary General ACEA, David Ward, Chairman FIA Foundation and Michiel Van Ratingen, Secretary General, Euro NCAP to give thumbs up to ESC!

The European Stability Control (ESC) Symposium took place in Brussels 1 July 2008. Experts in road and vehicle safety discussed progress and challenges for the deployment of road safety technologies. At the same time a special exhibition was organised to showcase the latest developments in road safety technologies.

Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media strongly supports the ‘Choose ESC!’ campaign as she believes that there still is a lot to be done to convince the consumers to perceive safety technologies as essential. As she stated:  “The European Commission has proposed to make ESC mandatory from 2012 but that does not mean that we can stop our promotion of safety technologies. We know that thousands of lives can be saved through our campaigning and training activities for safety technologies like ESC. We are obliged to tell the citizens that they should look for safety when they buy a new car as it might save their life one day.”

Hermann Meyer, CEO of ERTICO – ITS Europe, identified ESC as one of the core technologies to reduce accidents and fatalities on the roads and expressed his wish to see all available tools – ranging from passive to preventive and anticipative – being promoted. He pointed out that a successful strategy to promote the market penetration of ESC depended on effective incentives for all stakeholders – it had to be a win-win for everyone. Mrs Zita Gurmai, rapporteur on the Intelligent Car Report, underlined the importance of providing information on new safety technologies to the car dealers, who should be “trained and encouraged to talk about safety devices, especially ESC, and to show to the clients why they need this feature in their new vehicle instead of promoting comfort and entertainment devices.”

The event featured an overview on the activities organised in the scope of the public information campaign ‘ChooseESC!’ as well as best practice examples of national campaigns and showcases on how to promote ESC. In addition, the conference saw the release of a new EU-wide ESC availability survey by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) and included an international session on the latest global developments on ESC with experts from the EU, Australia, Canada, and the USA. Attendees could also discover the whole dimension of ESC with the help of the Interactive Car CD prepared by eSafety Support.