Implementing pedestrian safetv interventions Attachment C <br />Attachment B <br />grille and/or high behind the windscreen, that scan the road and roadside ahead of <br />the car. If the sensors detect a risk of collision with a pedestrian (or vehicle) in front <br />of the car, the driver is warned and/or the brakes are automatically applied. AEB <br />has only a modest market penetration at present, but this is likely to increase rapidly <br />with the demands of European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) <br />and similar programmes. As with all new technologies, it will be several years before <br />vehicles with such systems begin to noticeably affect overall crash numbers (39-41). <br />Injury control by vehicle regulation and safety rating <br />The New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP) concept was developed in the <br />late 1980s by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the United <br />States to assess and publicize levels of occupant protection provided by new cars. <br />NCAP creates vehicle safety ratings for new vehicles based on crash test data and <br />assessment of safety features. The programme is intended to inform consumers <br />about vehicle safety and influence consumer behaviour in a way that encourages <br />vehicle manufacturers to improve vehicle design. NCAPs have since been established <br />in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Latin <br />America, and also by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in the United <br />States (42). <br />Since zooo, the NCAPs in Europe, Australia and Japan, and more recently in <br />the Republic of Korea, have introduced pedestrian safety assessments based <br />on pedestrian impact test procedures originally developed by the European <br />Experimental Vehicles Committee Working Group in the 1980s (42,43) (see <br />Box 4.9). The European and Australian NCAPs have recently incorporated the <br />pedestrian safety score into the overall NCAP safety rating for a vehicle. These <br />NCAP programmes have had a greater influence on vehicle design improvements for <br />pedestrian safety than formal regulations, which are much slower to develop than the <br />market forces that drive decision-making by vehicle manufacturers. <br />Some regulation of vehicle design for pedestrian protection has been introduced <br />in Europe and Japan. More recently a Global Technical Regulation (GTR) for <br />pedestrian protection has been issued by the United Nations World Forum for <br />Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations (United Nations Economic Commission <br />for Europe Working Party z9), after extensive debate over criteria to be used in <br />mandatory vehicle regulations for pedestrian safety. The crash test criteria of the <br />GTR are less stringent than corresponding NCAP requirements but compulsory <br />compliance with the GTR would be likely to facilitate improvements in current <br />vehicle design (44). Many vehicles currently in circulation would fail even the <br />minimum standard that it sets. Once the minimum standard is increasingly met <br />in new vehicles, the requirements of the GTR can be revised so that they are more <br />closely aligned with NCAP requirements. There is also a strong case for assessment <br />of pedestrian protection to be based on integrating the effects of collision detection <br />and injury mitigation systems (4S). <br />84 <br />Page 230 <br />