Commission staff working document

Safety measures

A number of the safety measures assessed below may be left optional, made mandatory or left up to voluntary manufacturer initiatives. It may be necessary to combine all the measures, to apply them individually, or to mandate them as different groups of measures, depending on the outcome of cost-effectiveness calculations.

Main possible measures assessed:

1. Obligatory fitting of advanced brake systems

(2) Anti-lock brake systems³⁴ on all powered two-wheelers (PTWs);

(3) Anti-lock brake systems on PTWs with cylinder capacity³⁵ > 125 cm³ and advanced brake systems (combined brake systems (CBS) and/or anti-lock brake systems (ABS)) on motorcycles with
50 cm³ < cylinder capacity ≤ 125 cm³;

(4) Obligatory fitting of advanced brake systems (combined brake systems and/or anti-lock braking systems) on motorcycles conforming to the performance criteria for the A2 driving licence³⁶. Obligatory fitting of anti-lock brake systems on all other L3e class motorcycles;

(5) Industry self-regulation, Annex V

2. Anti-tampering measures

(1) No change;

(2) Repeal Chapter 7 of Directive 97/24/EEC (currently obsolete anti-tampering measures);

(3) New measures on anti-tampering.

3. 74kW power limitation for motorcycles

(1) No change;

(2) Repeal the option given to Member States to limit power to 74kW;

(3) Set a harmonised limit of 74kW;

(4) Use an alternative limitation, e.g. power-to-mass ratio.

4. Improved categorisation of L-category vehicles

   1. Electrical cycles (currently outside the scope of the Framework Directive), tricycles (L5e) and quadricycles (categories L6e and L7e)

(2) Exclude quadricycles and electrical cycles and tricycles from the new Regulation;

(3) Return to the original spirit of the legislation for mini-cars, reintroducing small external dimensions and the original vehicle weight classification criteria (400 kg / 550 kg);

(4) Improve the legislation by adding new requirements for mini-cars based on car requirements;

(5) Refine the vehicle categories by introducing new sub-categories in L1e, L5e, L6e, and L7e. Add new/revised requirements for these sub-categories.

2. Specific requirements for category L7e vehicles

(2) Exclude off-road quads (ATVs) from the new Regulation and add new requirements on safety and emissions for on-road quadricycles (on-road quads and mini-cars);

(3) Keep the existing L7e category and add new requirements on safety for all quadricycles;

(4) Create new categories in L7e with specific requirements for off-and on-road quadricycles.

3. Specific requirements for gaseous alternative fuels and other non-traditional propulsions

(1) No change (legislation at national level);

(2) Legislation at European Union level through a more refined vehicle categorisation with specific measures for different vehicles and propulsion technologies.

5. Analysis of impacts

   1. Simplification of legislation

Option 1: No policy change

The main disadvantage of option 1 is that the problems described in chapter 2.2.1.of this impact assessment report will not be resolved. This is not in line with the Commission’s better regulation objective, in particular as there will be no improvement in terms of safety or environmental impacts. Continuing this approach would thus only place additional administrative burden on stakeholders.

A positive point is that requirements will not be "diluted" by replacing provisions of EU Directives with references to international standards like those of UNECE. Indeed, some respondents to the public consultation have expressed concern that such referencing could reduce safety and environmental protection. Some even fear a loss of transparency and loss of complete European control over international regulation by EU regulatory institutions. Another positive aspect of option 1 could be that specialists who are already familiar with the current legal text need not spend costly time reviewing a completely new legislative text. However, these benefits cannot be expressed in monetary terms and can therefore only be taken into account in the qualitative analysis.

Option 2: Replace the current set of directives by a small number of regulations

The exact number of implementing regulations, setting technical requirements via the comitology procedure, would still need to be determined. These provisions could be grouped by themes, like road safety or environmental protection. The advantage of referring as much as possible to UNECE international regulations is explained under the discussion of option 3.

This option would have the advantage of allowing technical experts to deal with coherent sets of issues via comitology. It is thus purely a practical approach, intended to facilitate adoption of the requirements, but will not affect the requirements themselves. Such an approach, using several sets of delegated acts containing the technical details, also aims to increase the clarity of the regulatory framework for manufacturers who have to comply with it to obtain type-approval. This clarity for industry is an important benefit of the simplification exercise, in particular for SMEs, which have limited administrative resources to deal with the complex regulatory requirements for obtaining type-approval. The aim of providing a clear and logical structure is supported by industry representatives.

As far as costs for administrations are concerned, these would be lower because there would no longer be any need to transpose directives into national law, leading to reduced costs for the Member States. The Commission would no longer be responsible for the time-consuming scrutiny of transposition. Both national and EU administrations would thus benefit from the new format. Grouping the regulations into sets will allow experts to deal more coherently with aspects of similar, limited objectives. The decision to opt for one or more implementing regulations should be agreed with the comitology committees. In the assessment, it was not possible to quantify the benefits of simplification in terms of lower cost to industry or for consumers.

A negative aspect of using a small number of implementing regulations can be the lengthy process involved: agreeing on one text including all requirements may take a lot of time for the committee and will involve different experts depending on the aspects covered. Another perceived disadvantage of this option may be the shift of control and scrutiny from national parliaments to the EU institutions. Basically, the EU Commission proposes a legal text for the new Regulation and this text is scrutinised and voted on by the co-legislators, the EU Parliament and Council. As soon as the Regulation is adopted and published in the EU Official Journal³⁸, it will enter into force in all the 27 Members States simultaneously on the specified dates, without the extra step of having to be transposed into national law.

From the cost perspective³⁹, an average cost of € 2 .4 million may be incurred from 2009 until 2020, within a range of € 58 400 to € 8 .8 million. The annual cost of making amendments to the legal text would be slightly lower owing to the fact that technical progress can already partly be anticipated when the new legislation is developed and adopted, which means that further amendments to adapt to technical progress can already be partly included. This effect cannot be quantified. For the timeframe 2009 to 2020, an average cumulative benefit of € 421 000, within a range of € 78 000 to € 786 000, was calculated for this option. The cost-benefit ratio was on average 1.2, within a range between 1.1 and 2.5. The break-even point is estimated to be reached between the years 2017 and 2019.

Table 8, p. 17, of the TRL report⁴⁰ provides an overview of the quantitative and qualitative impacts for simplification options 1 and 2.

Option 3: Recast the current Framework Directive 2002/24/EC, simplify by referring to UNECE regulations, and maintain the implementing measures.

An alternative to option 2 could be to recast⁴¹ the current Framework Directive 2002/24/EC, referring as much as possible to UNECE regulations. This will benefit all actors dealing with this legislation, whether national authorities responsible for type-approval or manufacturers whose vehicle types have to comply with these requirements. In particular SMEs will benefit, as they have limited resources to devote to reviewing regulatory matters. To respond to concerns as to a weakening of requirements, it should be stated clearly that references will be proposed only in cases where the international standards are at least equal to the relevant EU directives.

The disadvantage mentioned under option 2, regarding a shift from national control and scrutiny to control by EU institutions, is not applicable in option 3. As the Framework Directive and its implementing measures will not be turned into a Regulation, the recast Directives will need to be transposed⁴² into national legislation. On the other hand, the additional cost of this transposition remains.

Manufacturers will continue to select the approval tests needed among the UNECE and remaining EU standards. There will be no additional administrative or type-approval costs compared with those under option 2. The requirements of repealed directives will be replaced by equivalent requirements. There is therefore no additional cost, but also no direct benefit in terms of cost reductions for manufacturers. The envisaged benefit will be simplification and clarification of the regulatory framework, but this is particularly hard to quantify.

The cost of this option is estimated to be in the same range as option 2, except that the cost of transposition needs be added. Although the precise differences between option 2 and 3 cannot be quantified, it is assumed that the cost-benefit ratio of option 3 is lower (higher cost owing to transposition, more or less the same benefits). This also means that the break-even point will be reached later than the 2017 – 2019 timeframe. Again, it was not possible to exactly quantify these financial indicators.

The societal impacts of option 3 are similar to those of option 2, but as it involves recasting directives, option 3 does not eliminate transposition and implementation costs for the administrations in the Member States. It is again likely to yield a low cost-benefit ratio and result in the break-even point being reached at a later date. Unfortunately, this hypothesis for option 3 cannot be supported with data. This scenario was not included in the extended policy report and, owing to timing constraints on collecting data after this report was published, only an estimate can be made, based on previous experience with the recasting of the Framework Directive for Euro 5 & 6 passenger cars. The option to refer to global standards, also used in the General Safety Regulation for motor vehicles, is widely supported by stakeholders, as expressed in their replies to the public consultation.

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   ECD -> En commission of the european communities brussels, 12. 12. 2008 com(2008) 853 final annex annex II to VIII
   ECD -> Report from the commission to the european parliament and the council european community safa programme aggregated information report
   ECD -> Report from the commission european community safa programme
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