Anti-skid tech gets EU backing

The European Commission is backing an "e-safety" technology which it thinks could help cut road accidents.

Electronic Stability Control (ESC) has been pinpointed as the key technology to help reduce road fatalities across Europe, and the European Commission has launched a "Choose ESC!" campaign to raise awareness of the tech in co-operation with the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP).

More than 40,000 people die and more than one million are injured on Europe's roads every year. Loss of control - often from skidding - has been identified as a major cause.

ESC detects when a car is about to skid and applies different brake pressure on individual wheels to stabilise the vehicle and avoid a skid developing. It is particularly effective in wet and icy conditions - reducing the risk of accidents by up to 20 per cent.

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European commissioner for information society, Viviane Reding, said the Commission sees the campaign as the first step towards all new cars being fitted with ESC by 2012.

The take-up of ESC has been relatively low in Europe. Denmark and Sweden have the largest proportion of vehicles fitted with ESC as standard, while Ireland and Malta languish at the bottom with ESC sometimes not even an option, according to a Euro NCAP survey.