The Department for Transport (DfT) has outlined its vision to develop and maintain high standards for the safety and environmental performance of road vehicles.
Following the UK’s departure from the EU, there is an opportunity to rethink the rules which apply to all cars, vans, motorcycles, and other vehicles sold in the UK. This is while maintaining high standards of safety and environmental protection and, wherever possible, reducing the administrative burden of demonstrating compliance with regulations.
The vision is to build a framework based on three key principles:
- Use international standards wherever possible – making regulation cheaper to follow for importers and exporters.
- Deregulate low risk areas and accept alternative national standards where international standards do not exist or aren’t suitable. If products can be proved safe in a comparable jurisdiction, DfT won’t impose the cost of unnecessary re-testing.
- Introduce UK-specific rules only where necessary, for example to introduce new technology more quickly, to simplify administrative requirements for industry or where DfT needs to act for safety reasons.
In the short term, these principles will be implemented with a three-year programme of reform to retained EU regulations. This will include options for future emission regulation and plans to introduce new safety technologies, such as automated lane keeping, and regulation to strengthen cyber security.
