Under-runs soon?
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• A Government decision on the next stage in the development of front under-run legislation is likely to come within the next three months.
In the current financial year, which ends next April, the Dip has committed £70,000 (or L5 man-years of research effort) to research into front under-run bumpers through the Transport and Road Research Laboratory at Crowthorne, Berkshire.
The latest spending was revealed last week by Roads and Traffic Minister, Peter Bottomley in his reply to a series of Commons questions from Labour MP Gareth Wardell, but Bottomley said nothing of any plans to spend more on under-run research in the next financial year.
Bottomley reported that when the TRRL has drawn up a practical specification for effective, energy-absorbing front under-run guards, the Government will decide whether they should be fitted to all new lorries in the same way as spray suppression equipment.
"More than 5,400 people were injured last year in accidents involving collisions with the front end of heavy commercial vehicles and 294 drivers and passengers of light vans and cars were killed in such accidents," he said.
When the 'I'RRL last published results of its front under-run research, at the 10th international conference on experimental safety vehicles in Oxford in 1985, it estimated that about 40 car occupant lives could be saved each year by preventing front under-run, provided the car occupants wore seat belts.
At the same conference the TRRL described an "invertube" under-run guard it had been testing which is estimated to cost about £150, exVAT and fitting, and which weighs 60 kg.
TRRL will describe the under-run work it has done since 1985 at the next international experimental safety vehicles conference which will be held in Washington USA in May, 1987.
Pressure on the Government to introduce front underrun legislation has been growing since the all-party Commons Transport Committee recommended their adoption in 1985.