Stages of Safety

The HGV TRUCK SAFE star ratings considers four areas:

Safe Driving includes safety essentials such as seat belt reminder and speed assistance which displays the correct speed limit for the road and vehicle type and supports the driver in keeping within them. Vision is paramount to safe HGV driving and manoeuvring. Direct vision affords the driver a clear view of pedestrians and cyclists near the vehicle, and is improved by lowering the cab, providing deep windows all round, a near-side lower door, and sculpting the cab interior to minimise window obscuration. Camera Monitor Systems (CMS) serve to further improve direct vision by replacing the large class II/IV door mirror units with discretely mounted A-pillar screens. CMS can also provide easier-to-interpret class V/VI area views with greater coverage and reduced distortion, beneficial during both urban driving and on the highway for spotting an adjacent vehicle when changing lanes. Driver status monitoring observes for degradation in a driver’s attentiveness, invaluable given that the nature of HGV driving often involves long periods of highway driving or the challenge of safely negotiating busy city environments. Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) helps the driver maintain a safe driving speed and following distance, and can even help avoid front to rear collisions.

Crash Avoidance systems use camera and radar sensors to monitor the road and traffic environment around the HGV for critical situations. If the driver does not react to an imminent collision with another vehicle, pedestrian or cyclist, Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) can automatically intervene to warn the driver and slow the vehicle to prevent the collision. AEB has proven itself invaluable for safe high-speed highway driving and in low-speed urban driving and manoeuvring with crossing pedestrians and cyclists. A recent innovation is AEB sensitive to cyclists passing the near side of a turning HGV. Lane support systems provide a momentary steering correction in case the HGV is drifting out of lane or inadvertently changing lanes into the path of an overtaking vehicle. The best systems interpret the road and traffic scene to balance steering interventions with driver acceptance.

Crash Protection will promote improved cab structures and restraint systems that protect HGV occupants in collisions. However, in HGV multi-vehicle collisions, other vehicle fatalities outweigh HGV fatalities [five] times to one, so crash compatibility is of major importance. This is challenging because of truck mass and height of the structural members, but innovative developments such as energy-absorbing structures working in combination with crash avoidance systems offer huge potential. These developments have a long engineering lead time and work starts now on developing the 2030 crash protection assessments for these future vehicles.

Post Crash Safety. To enable fast and effective rescue of injured occupants, first responders require clear rescue information describing the specific vehicle they are approaching. Labelling identifies the vehicle power source and the emergency response guide (available on the Euro Rescue app) describes how to isolate it and navigate other hazards the vehicle may pose. Advanced e-Call supports rapid collision notification, a tailored response and efficient occupant extrication.

The CitySafe award recognises high performance across the key elements that serve to protect vulnerable road users in urban areas, namely direct and indirect vision and AEB which reacts to pedestrians and cyclists in the road ahead and cyclists in near side turns. Manufacturers must score a minimum of 3 stars to earn the CitySafe award.