Saving lives with Daylight Running Lights (DRL): A Consultation Paper

According to the research available, Daytime Running Light (DRL) has a high potential to increase road safety. It helps road users to better and earlier detect, recognise and identify vehicles. Studies estimate the life-saving potential of DRL to be in the order of 3-5% of the yearly number of road fatalities.

That is to say, if measures are taken to require the use of DRL throughout the EU, it could help saving between 1,200 and 2,000 road fatalities per year and thus make an important contribution to the European target of saving 25,000 lives per year on European roads.

Given the positive contribution that DRL can make to road safety across Europe, the adoption of EU legislation in this field must be considered very seriously. In order to provide for the necessary flexibility, a legislative initiative on DRL could foresee a fixed date for the transposition of the technical requirement to install automatic dedicated DRL on new vehicles and an appropriate period of time to transpose the user requirement for existing vehicles.