ABS for Motorbikes will save lives now, we cannot afford to wait until 2017, FIA tells European Parliament Hearing

Publication date: 22 March 2011

Luca Pascotto, Mobility Director for the FIA, speaking at the hearing with Bernd Lange MEP looking on.

“We cannot afford to wait until 2017 to make the Antilock Braking System (ABS) compulsory in motorcycles. Our figures show that thousands of road fatalities could be prevented by acting now,” said Luca Pascotto, Mobility Director for FIA Region I, at a public hearing of the European Parliament Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection on 22 March.

Referring to estimations carried out by the Italian Automobile club ACI which considered the affect of ABS on crashes at intersections and rear end collisions, he said “Looking at an overview of fatal accidents in Italy in 2008, out of 1155 fatalities, ACI found that ABS would definitely have saved 140 lives and it would have completely avoided the crash in 122 cases. As a total, that amounts to 23% of crashes which could have been avoided or definitely influenced by ABS. These results are backed up by similar tests carried out in Germany by ADAC, who based their estimations on the share of accidents caused by looking at the key areas of emergency braking and braking stability.”

Pascotto said that consumer tests carried out by the FIA’s European Automobile Clubs demonstrate that ABS results in better driving stability during braking as well as a reduction of the emergency braking distance (up to 25% on wet roads).

He warned, however, that ABS for motorcycles on its own will not automatically enhance road safety, saying “Only through ABS driving and braking practice will there be real improvements on safety. The FIA supports the Safe System approach which focuses on the road user, the vehicle and the road infrastructure in order to reduce road injuries. Motorcyclists can make mistakes, but we need a coherent system which mitigates the risk of accidents. ABS has an important role to play as part of that system, reducing casualties in emergency situations.”

The FIA’s recommendations are as follows:

• Improved safety training for riders with specific information campaigns for consumers;
• Medium-performance motorcycles (> 125cc, max 35kW) and high performance motorcycles (>125 cm3, over 35 kW) should be equipped as soon as possible with the Antilock Braking System (ABS). We should not lose more lives by waiting until 2017 to make it mandatory;
• The Combined Braking System (CBS) and Advanced Braking System do not have the same safety performance of ABS. Consumers should be clearly informed on the safety technologies available. ABS must be refined to cover only those systems which are concerned by wheel lock.

The meeting was chaired by Malcolm Harbour MEP, Chairman of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee while other speakers included the rapporteur responsible for guiding this piece of legislation through the European Parliament, Wim van de Camp MEP, as well as other representatives from different motorcycle interest groups. Mr van de Camp said that he was in agreement that we need to keep working on ABS, saying that the majority of people he had met were in favour of making ABS compulsory.

Malcolm Harbour MEP and Wim van de Camp MEP at the hearing