Europe agrees on Roadworthiness Package

The European Parliament and the Council have reached agreement on the Roadworthiness Package, a collection of directives which cover periodic roadworthiness tests (PTI) for motor vehicles and their trailers, technical roadside inspections (RSI) of the roadworthiness of commercial vehicles and the registration documents for vehicles.

The first instrument is a revision of the 2009/40/EC Periodic Roadworthiness Directive2. The second covers the revision of Directive 2000/30/EC on technical roadside inspections of commercial vehicles3. The final Directive to be revised is 1999/37/EC on the requirements for issuing registration certificates.

The Directive on Periodic Roadworthiness tests was recast in 2009 but the body of the text has not seen any major revision since adoption in 1996. Since then both cars and in-vehicle safety systems that are electronically controlled have developed rapidly. Vehicle examiners need to assure a rigorous testing regime for new in-vehicle technologies. The EU has also proposed extending the Directive to cover other vehicle types such as light commercial vehicles and Powered Two Wheelers (PTWs).

The main objective of the proposed legislative package is to enhance road safety and the European Commission clearly sets out both the long-term ‘vision zero’ objective of the Transport White Paper and also the target of halving road deaths by 50% by 2020.