European Commission calls for vehicle mobile device connection as standard

A new report published by the European Commission calls for a standard approach to connecting mobile devices to car dashboards, in a bid to reduce in-car distraction and lower vehicle collision risk.

The study was conducted by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), Transport Netherlands Organisation (TNO) and Rapp-Trans and estimates that 10-30 per cent of all car accidents are due to in-car distraction. It also recommends that Member States should include information on distraction when reporting road collisions, as well as more research to better quantify the impacts of interrupting driver attention.

The research commends modest advances in mobile technology such as devices initialing a text message when a phone call recipient is driving. However, it argues more is still necessary. The report suggests that standardising phone holders in vehicles will ensure phones and cables are securely fixed when in use.

The European Transport Safety Council (ETCS) has called for car makers to publicly demonstrate that their in-vehicle infotainment systems comply with the EU’s statement of principles on human machine interface design. Under current regulations the systems ‘should be designed to support the driver and should not give rise to potentially hazardous behaviour’.

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