Cars in Europe to Necessarily Have Electronic Stability Control

While India is still waiting for even airbags to be made mandatory, Europe has gone a step further to make its cars much safer to drive by making electronic stability control (ESC) a standard fitment in all new cars. In Europe it is estimated that since 1995 at least 1,88,500 crashes involving injury have been avoided and more than 6,100 lives saved by ESC, says Global NCAP.

Country and regions that have made the application of ESC mandatory are Australia, Canada, the European Union, Israel, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, Turkey and the United States of America. In fact, government of Argentina and New Zealand too have committed to mandate this life-saving technology in 2018 and 2015 respectively.

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In a bid to extended this life-saving technology worldwide, Global NCAP is urging all UN Member States to make ESC a standard fitment on all cars worldwide during the current UN Decade of Action.

Max Mosley, Chairman of Global NCAP, said: "The current ESC global fitment rate of approximately 59% of new passenger and light duty vehicles is too low, action is needed to raise this to 100%, at the latest by the close of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety in 2020."

Global NCAP's secretary general David Ward said: "ESC is the most significant advance in vehicle safety since the introduction of the seatbelt. The anti-skid technology is already preventing hundreds of thousands of loss of control crashes and saving tens of thousands of lives, but will achieve even more if legislators around the world make ESC compulsory."

At Global NCAP's Annual Meeting, which took place in Tianjin, China on October 30, held in parallel with the 2014 UN Decade of Action for Road Safety Summit, Global NCAP adopted the Tianjin Declaration. While applauding all the countries that have made ESC mandatory, the declaration asks all UN Member States, especially the ones producing automobiles, to mandate ESC in new models by 2018 and in all all models by 2020.

"ESC is a mature technology proven to save lives," said Ward. "It is simple and inexpensive for automakers to integrate ESC into their cars. That's why the Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety strongly recommends fitment of ESC. Wherever in the world consumers, fleet managers and car rental operators buy cars, they should only choose vehicles equipped with ESC."

How does ESC work?

Also known as Electronic Stability Program (ESP) or Dynamic Stability Control (DSC), ESC uses sensors to monitor the vehicle's stability. And if a vehicle starts skidding on dry, wet or slippery roads, the system intervenes and reduces engine torque while braking individual wheels. This generates the force needed to put a vehicle back on course.

Several studies confirm that the effectiveness of ESC in reducing single passenger vehicle crashes that result in fatalities by 40%.