As things stand, 53 percent of new cars registered each year across Europe are fitted with the potentially life saving technology.
The regulation has still to be finally adopted by the Council of Ministers.
Accident research shows that skidding in the main cause of accidents with fatal results.
“ESP can prevent up to 80 percent of all skid-related accidents,” says Dr Werner Struth, president of the Chassis Systems Control division at Bosch, summarizing the results of international studies. “After the seat belt, the system is therefore the most important safety technology in the car.”
Bosch developed the electronic stability program, and in 1995 it was the first company in the world to put it into series production.
The mandatory installation of ESP is part of a comprehensive package of measures that the European Union intends to implement in order to increase road safety and reduce fuel consumption.
In addition to ESP, predictive emergency braking and lane departure warning systems will be mandatory for commercial vehicles with a gross weight of more than 3.5 tons and for minivans and buses with more than eight seats from November 2013 (new model) and November 2015 (new registrations). Compulsory low rolling resistance tyres and tyre pressure monitoring systems will further reduce fuel consumption starting in November 2012.
In 2001, when the number of people killed on the roads in the EU stood at 50,000, the European Commission set itself the goal of halving the number of road deaths in the EU by 2010. In 2006, the number of road deaths in the EU was 39,500.
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