Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the retrofitting of mirrors to heavy goods vehicles registered in the Community COM(2006) 570 final — 2006/0183(COD)
Date: 2007-03-14
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: ESC opinion, commercial vehicle, road safety, safety device, technical regulations

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Official Journal of the European Union

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Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the Proposal for a Directive of the
European Parliament and of the Council on the retrofitting of mirrors to heavy goods vehicles regis-
tered in the Community

COM(2006) 570 final — 2006/0183(COD)

(2007/C 161/05)

On 10 November 2006 the Council decided to consult the European Economic and Social Committee,
under Article 71(1)(c) of
the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the above-mentioned
proposal.

The Section for the Single Market, Production and Consumption, which was responsible for preparing the
Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 7 February 2007. The rapporteur was
Mr Ranocchiari.

At its 434th plenary session, held on 14 and 15 March 2007 (meeting of 14 March), the European
Economic and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 139 votes, with six abstentions.

1. Conclusions and recommendations

2010, was a milestone in its renewed commitment to this
cause.

1.1
The EESC welcomes the Commission's commitment to
strive for ever safer road traffic and fully supports its proposal,
which is worthy of a place among the initiatives undertaken to
this end.

1.2
The EESC congratulates the Commission on carrying out
a cost-benefit analysis and a thorough impact assessment before
issuing the proposal:
to make the proposal
this enabled it
realistic, taking all aspects of the issue into due consideration
and giving the necessary priority to the protection of the most
vulnerable road users.

However,

the proposal as it

the EESC feels that

is
1.3
currently worded contains a number of problematic elements
which should be pointed out, and suggests some additions and
clarifications which should make it easier
to implement
correctly in terms of timeframes, certification and monitoring
of implementation.

1.4
The EESC calls upon the Commission to take into due
consideration its suggestions regarding the need for genuinely
uniform treatment to avoid distortions of competition between
Member States, and regarding the importance of giving Member
States more recommendations on certification systems which
are easy for the national authorities governing the sector to use.

The EESC strongly recommends to the Council and the
1.5
European Parliament
the proposal be implemented as
quickly as possible so as to cover most of the vehicle fleet and
to ensure that as many human lives as expected are saved.

that

Successive initiatives, such as the Road safety action
2.2
programme (2), the eSafety initiative and many others, piloted
an integrated approach to the issue, involving industry, public
authorities and road users' associations, thereby overcoming the
constraints which — partly in the name of the subsidiarity prin-
ciple — had been placed on the introduction of binding, prac-
tical measures at European level.

2.3 Much progress has been made: for example, in the past
30 years, while road traffic has trebled, the number of road acci-
dent victims has halved. However, this statistic should on no
account be allowed to ease our consciences as Europe is still
paying too high a price for the relentless increase in mobility,
with around 40 000 deaths per year and the bleak prospect
that the challenge laid down by the 2001 White Paper may be
lost.

2.4
The EESC recognises that decisive progress in the area of
road safety can only be achieved if improvements are made in
all three of its ‘pillars’, i.e. the automotive industry, infrastructure
and user behaviour. However, it supports any initiative which,
although targeting only one of
the pillars, can contribute
towards achieving the ambitious 2001 goal.

2. Reasons for the Commission's proposal and its legisla-

tive context

2.1
Road safety has always been an absolute priority for the
Community institutions. There is no doubt that the publication
of the White Paper on transport policy (1), one of whose objec-
tives was to halve the number of road accident victims by

(1) European transport policy for 2010: time to decide (COM(2001) 370 final).

It was with this in mind that the EESC endorsed (3) the
2.5
adoption of Directive 2003/97/EC (4), which proposed a Euro-
pean-level harmonised approach to road safety to reduce the
risks arising from heavy goods vehicle drivers having incomplete
vision to the side.

(2) COM(2003) 311 final.
(3) CESE 512/2002 — OJ C 149 of 21.6.2002.
(4) ‘… relating to the type-approval of devices for indirect vision and of vehicles

equipped with these devices, amending …’, OJ L 25 of 29.1.2004.

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2.6
Indeed, the aim of Directive 2003/97/EC was to remove
the risk of accident arising from the fact that heavy goods vehi-
cles have a blind spot on the passenger side, requiring a set of
more effective mirrors to be fitted as of 2006/2007.

2.13
The current Commission proposal seeks to find ways of
making the fleet already in circulation safe as well, as quickly as
possible.

2.7 Many road accidents occur precisely because the blind
spot around their vehicle prevents large-vehicle drivers from
detecting other road users in their immediate vicinity.

3. Gist of the proposal

2.8
In particular, the risk arises at crossings or roundabouts
when, as he changes direction, the driver has to cope with a
blind spot on the passenger side which prevents him seeing the
road users nearest to the vehicle, such as pedestrians, cyclists
and motorcyclists, who are also the most vulnerable road users.

2.9
An estimated 400 people die in this type of accident
each year, and that is sufficient reason why the EESC, like other
parties, unreservedly supported the adoption of Directive
2003/97/EC repealing and replacing the first directive on the
type-approval of systems for indirect vision (71/127/EEC) and
subsequent amendments. The repealed directive laid down
provisions on the construction and fitting of rear-view mirrors
but national measures on the subject remained untouched. Only
with Directive 2003/97/EC did a specific set of mirrors or other
systems
indirect vision become mandatory throughout
Europe.

for

vehicles: however,

2.10
As regards types of heavy duty vehicles, Directive
2003/97/EC concerns N2 goods vehicles over 7.5 t and N3 (5)
amended by Directive
it was
goods
2005/27/EC (6), which, under
requires
Class IV and Class V mirrors (7) to be fitted on vehicles weighing
3.5 t instead of the previous 7.5 t.

certain conditions,

2.11
Directive 2003/97/EC applies to vehicle type-approvals
(new types) with effect from 26 January 2006 and to new
vehicle registrations (new vehicles) with effect from 26 January
2007. This means that vehicles already in circulation, i.e. most
of the fleet, will not be subject to the provisions.

2.12
There are well over five million heavy duty vehicles
(=> 3.5 t) in the European Union. Given the life of these vehi-
cles (as long as 16 years) and the slow turnover of the fleet
(300 000 registrations each year) with 2007 as the start of the
process, it would be 2023 before the entire fleet were equipped
with the new mirrors.

The proposal is to be a temporary measure. In essence,
3.1
the Commission calls
the provisions of Directive
2003/97/EC to be extended to N2 and N3 vehicles already in
circulation in respect of the new Class IV and V mirrors (field of
vision on the passenger side), with the following exceptions:

for

— vehicles registered more than 10 years before the date of
transposition of the directive into national legislation (about
1998);

— vehicles where it is impossible to mount Class IV and Class V

mirrors in compliance with the following conditions:

a) no parts of the mirrors are less than 2 m (± 10 cm)
from the ground when the vehicle is under a load corre-
sponding to its maximum technically permissible weight,

b) the mirrors are fully visible from the driving position;

— vehicles that were already subject to national measures (8)
requiring fitment of other means of indirect vision covering
not less than 95 % of the total field of vision at ground
level provided by the Class IV and the Class V mirror under
Directive 2003/97/EC.

the directive, and
3.2 Member States have to implement
therefore ensure that
the new mirrors are fitted, within
12 months of its entry into force, with a number of possible
derogations:

— compliance with the requirements of the Directive will be
deemed to be achieved where vehicles are equipped with
mirrors whose combination of field of vision covers not less
field of vision at ground level
than 99 % of
provided by the Class IV and the Class V mirror under Direc-
tive 2003/97/EC;

the total

— Member States may give vehicles registered from 4 to 7 years
before the entry into force of the directive an additional year
to comply and vehicles registered from 7 to 10 years before
the entry into force of the directive an additional two years.

(5) N2: maximum weight > 3,5 t and <= 12 t; N3: maximum weight > 12 t.
(6) OJ L 81 of 30.5.2005.
(7) Class I — Interior rear-view mirror; Classes II and III — Main exterior
rear-view mirrors; Class IV — ‘Wide-angle’ exterior mirrors; Class V —
‘Close-proximity’ exterior mirrors; Class VI — Front mirrors.

(8) The ‘grandfathers’: Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands. The same
may be said of Germany, where a voluntary agreement between the
government and truck manufacturers enables the same results to be
achieved as by the ‘grandfathers’ for vehicles produced after 2000.

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3.3
Lastly, vehicles which it is technically impossible to fit
with the requisite mirrors may be equipped with other devices
for indirect vision (video cameras or other electronic devices),
provided that such devices cover at least 99 % of the field of
vision as specified above. In these cases, the vehicles must be
individually approved by the competent authorities of
the
Member States.

3.4 Member States are free to extend the scope of the direc-
tive to vehicles over 10 years old.

4. General comments

It should be pointed out that the proposal only makes
4.1
sense if it is implemented quickly enough to have a significant
impact on the fleet in circulation.
Indeed, according to the
Commission's estimates, the phasing-in of the new mirrors on
vehicles will enable a further 1 200 human lives to be saved.

the

However,

Commission

in the impact assessment accompanying the
4.2
proposal (9),
that
immediate, rigorous implementation of the new requirements
would create numerous
technical problems, with adverse
economic and other effects on operators in the sector and
consequent potential market distortions.

acknowledges

itself

same time, allowing Member States which have already legis-
lated on the subject a limit of 95 %. The EESC feels that it
would be fairer, as well as simpler for monitoring purposes, to
lay down a single percentage applying to the whole of the EU.

4.6.2
Remaining on the subject of uniform treatment, the
fact that Member States are given the option to decide to delay
implementation of the new measures where older vehicles are
concerned (12) could cause distortions of competition between
vehicles traded internationally. The EESC therefore recommends
that the timeframe for implementing the new measures be the
same in all the Member States.

In this regard, given the large number of vehicles and
4.6.2.1
the complex nature of certification, the EESC believes that an
adjustment period of two years from the transposition of the
directive is necessary but that that will suffice. On this point,
recent Transport
the general
Council (13) seems to tally with the solution suggested here. On
the other hand, the same Council appeared to be planning to
apply the directive to vehicles registered as of 1 January 2000
rather than 1998, thereby excluding about 15 % of the fleet in
circulation.

approach adopted by

the

4.3
The Commission states that, for over half of the fleet in
circulation, the mirrors can be replaced easily and affordably, i.e.
at a cost of about EUR 150 (10). Where the rest of the fleet is
concerned, solutions range from a slight downsizing of field-of-
vision requirements (> 99 %) to highly complex solutions for
older vehicles, some of which would require structural modifica-
tions in the cabin, the success of which is uncertain, at a cost of
thousands of euro.

4.4
Given these variables, in difficult or (where some vehicle
models/versions are concerned) apparently insoluble cases, the
Commission calls on national inspection authorities ‘to be flex-
ible and accept exceptional solutions at reasonable costs’ (11).

4.5 While the EESC understands the reasons for this vague-
ness, caused by the many technical issues to be addressed, it
feels that the proposal as currently worded is liable to give rise
to substantial differences in interpretation, with adverse effects
on the European freight transport market.

The EESC is concerned about two aspects in particular:
4.6
the risk of disparities in the treatment of operators in the road
transport sector, leading to distortion of competition, and the
lack of a simple, reliable, uniform certification and monitoring
system for the new provisions.

4.6.1 With regard to the first point, it seems inappropriate to
require new mirrors to provide 99 % coverage while, at the

(9) SEC(2006) 1238 and SEC(2006) 1239.
(10) This cost is realistic where only the reflective glass is replaced but

becomes much higher where a complete mirror is fitted.

(11) Impact Assessment, page 5 of the English version.

4.6.3
The EESC feels the second point raised is even more
worrying — certification and monitoring in respect of the new
requirements. It is doubtful whether verification and certifica-
tion of the field of vision can be carried out effectively on every
vehicle as part of a periodic inspection. Determining the field of
vision is actually a very demanding operation involving a set of
parameters and different, complex recordings.

Normally, a type approval mark, as in the case of the
4.6.3.1
above-mentioned Directive 2003/97/EC, relates to the certifica-
tion of an assembly (mirror, mount, cabin, seat, height of the
mirror from the ground) which is not determined by the mirror
alone but also by the vehicle model on which it is fitted. These
tests are carried out on a prototype, whose approval implies and
guarantees the approval of the entire subsequent production
series. Thus, the mirrors are type-approved as a single set of
components, with a type-approval mark affixed on the body of
the mirror which does not have to be replaced when the reflec-
tive glass is replaced. This raises a problem for vehicles already
in circulation which have been type-approved on the basis of
the previous Directive, 71/127/EEC: were the reflective glass
alone to be replaced, such vehicles would bear a type-approval
mark referring to a repealed directive.

(12) Cf. point 3.2.
(13) TTE Council of 12.12.2006.

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4.6.3.2
Therefore, if no conformity guarantee (mark, certifi-
cate etc.) were provided for, there would be a danger that all
vehicles would have to be inspected and undergo the tests laid
down in Directive 2003/97/EC. In effect, the field of vision of
each individual vehicle would have to be re-type-approved, as in
cases where electronic devices are used to achieve the field of
vision required. It is easy to imagine the impact of this on the
workload of the certification and monitoring authorities, given
that millions of vehicles would be involved.

4.6.3.3
The solution recommended by the Commission and
the Council makes conformity certification part of the annual
required by Directive 96/96/EC of
road worthiness
20 December 1996 for vehicles weighing over 3.5 t.

tests

4.6.3.4
These tests are limited, where mirrors are concerned,
to recording that they have been safely fitted at the requisite
points and that the assemblies are complete. It is therefore unli-
kely that it will be possible to certify on the basis of these tests
that the overall field of vision required, as described above, has
been achieved.

4.6.3.5
The EESC's preferred solution, which would be more
practical to implement and yield more reliable results, is for the
company fitting the new mirrors to issue a declaration of
conformity. This document, signed by the company representa-
tive, would contain all
including
those relating to replaced mirrors or
reflective glass. The
declaration would be kept in the vehicle and would be valid for
the purposes of both the annual inspection and roadside checks.
Moreover, as the document would consist almost exclusively of
numerical codes, it would raise no particular problems of trans-
lation into the EU languages.

the vehicle's specifications,

Brussels, 14 March 2007.

5. Specific comments

The report introducing the proposal states that Directive
5.1
Commission Directive
by
2003/97/EC was
2005/27/EC to extend the general
fitting
requirement
Class IV and Class V mirrors down to N2 vehicles weighing 3.5 t
instead of the previous 7.5 t.

amended

for

However, this wording is misleading as the provision
5.1.1
could be seen as applying to all N2 vehicles under 7.5 t. In
actual fact, Directive 2005/27/EC lays down this requirement
only for N2 vehicles which have a cabin similar to that of an N3
vehicle, where a Class V mirror can be fitted two metres from
the ground. Only in this case can the fitting of the two new
mirrors be required.

5.1.2
The EESC therefore suggests, in the interests of clarity,
that Article 2(b) of the proposal be revised to include a specific
exemption for N2 vehicles weighing 7.5 t or less to which it is
not possible to fit a Class V mirror, in line with the provisions
of Directive 2005/27.

5.2
Recital 8 provides for an exemption for ‘vehicles whose
remaining lifespan is short’, clearly referring to vehicles which
have been in use for a considerable number of years and there-
fore have a limited remaining lifespan. Given that the average
fleet lifespan varies between Member States, the Commission
needs to make this concept clearer and quantify it.

5.3 Many vehicles already in circulation have been fitted with
an optional (Class IV) wide-angle mirror on the driver's side.
The requirement now endorsed for a new wide-angle mirror on
the passenger side means that the first mirror will have to be
replaced too as the driver, who already has to cope with several
mirrors, could have problems using two wide-angle mirrors
with different curvatures to assess distances.

The President

of the European Economic and Social Committee

Dimitris DIMITRIADIS