FYEG salutes European Parliament move to ban rigid Bull-bars and urges member states to go further!
During its plenary session on the 25th of May, the European Parliament took an extra step towards protecting pedestrians and other week road users by adopting Swedish MEP Ewa Hedkvist Peterson’s report asking for an EU ban on rigid bull-bars being fitted to passenger cars.
‘Frontal protection systems’ as they are candidly known were originally installed on cars, mainly 4-wheeldrives, for protecting vehicles from wild animals in rural and forest areas.
Currently they have become the ultimate fashion statement for all those drivers who need to protect themselves from the hoards of buffalos who stampede through the vast savannas of Europe’s town centres.
Today’s sad reality is that this fashion statement is dangerous and puts the life of pedestrians and other ‘weak’ road users in danger, especially children. With the proliferation of the 4 wheel drive mania, banning rigid bullbars is, for FYEG, a sensible course of action to take.
FYEG is happy that the Greens/EFA amendment (art. 6a) was added to the report allowing national authorities to further restrict the use of these ironically called ‘protection systems’ and urges them to use all the possibilities this offers!
Some campaigns on four-wheeldrives in Europe and beyond:
- http://www.carbusters.org/ (European/Global)
- http://www.anti4x4.net/ (French)
- http://whatwouldjesusdrive.org/