Max Mosley, the head of the FIA and the driving force behind the EuroNCAP crash tests has called for car makers to fit electronic stability control to all cars as standard, and for governments to porvide fiscal incentives for them to do so.
According to Mosley, the FIA has figures that show that up to 35% of all single vehicle accidents could have been avoided if ESP were fitted. He went on to say that most SVA crashes involve young people driving small, affordable cars that are less likely to be fitted with ESP.
But according to the FIA, governments should provide tax breaks on models fitted with ESP to encourage car makers to fit it to even the cheapest models, similar to a system Germany introduced to encourage the fitment of catalytic convertors. And given that the European figure for the fiscal cost of each road fatality runs to an average of €1 million, the exchequer would actually save money overall. Needless to say, that takes no account of the horrendous personal cost of each road death.
Incidentally, if you order ESP as an option on a car bought in Ireland, like every other optional extra you purchase, you will pay up to 30% VRT and 21% VAT on it. So what's the cost of saving lives in Ireland?
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