Vehicle safety is a top priority for any automotive manufacturer. Preventing accidents from happening, or ensuring nobody is injured if an accident occurs, is one of the main areas of concern whenever a manufacturer designs a new car. But it can go far beyond this, as one UK company is showing us.
Brake, the road safety charity in the United Kingdom, has campaigned to put new safety equipment on all cars in the UK. It has done so following the death of eight-year-old Dev Naran, who lost his life in a motorway collision. As a result, the new legislation will be known as Dev’s Law.
The UK government recently gave the green light to legislation that makes these safety features a legal requirement. This will include 18 vehicle safety technology features, which are already fitted as standard to new cars in Northern Ireland and the EU. The new features, alongside other measures, could help to reduce deaths and serious injuries on the roads by 65 percent by 2035.
A consultation determined that manufacturers should be required to equip cars with a range of safety features. These include intelligent speed assistance, automated emergency braking and advanced distraction warning.
Why the New Features Are Being Installed
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The new legislation comes after years of campaigning by Brake, following the death of eight-year-old Dev Naran. Naran died after a lorry slammed into the stationary car he was in on the M6 motorway near Birmingham. Since then, his mum Meera Naran MBE has campaigned hard for safer roads since the death of her son.
The law that has now come to pass means that all new vehicles in the UK should be fitted with Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) as well as other new safety features. Meera believes that had the system been on the lorry that hit the car, her son would still be alive. With the equipment fitted, Thatcham Research (The motor insurers’ automotive research centre) said that it could save up to 1,100 lives and avoid 122,860 casualties on Britain’s roads over the next decade.
“This announcement reflects an enormous amount of hard work and leadership, and a commitment to improving road safety through evidence-based, preventative life-saving technologies,” said Meera. “I am deeply grateful to all those involved for their dedication to ensuring these features, including AEB, will soon be written into legislation in the UK, in Dev’s loving memory,” she added.
The Other Benefits of the New Law
Dev’s Law also means that other safety equipment, such as speed assistance and advanced distraction warnings, is to become a legal requirement on new cars in the UK. The UK Department of Transport announced on July 16th that this new initiative had been given the go-ahead. The move could also save up to £7 billion, roughly $5.2 billion, in health costs over a 16-year period.
The new AEB system will monitor the road ahead, and it will slow the vehicle down automatically if the driver doesn’t respond to a threat ahead of them. This is why Meer believes the new technology could have saved the life of her son. The UK has been lagging behind countries like Northern Ireland, the EU and Australia in this area, but this is a definitive step in the right direction.