Requires safety cage

Jan-Helge Sandvåg was one of the speakers at the technically oriented part of the safety conference. He took as his starting point the fact that Tide, together with YTF, Fellesforbundet and NHO Transport, had participated in two meetings with former Minister of Transport Hareide on driver safety. The Norwegian Public Roads Administration also participated in the meetings, which he characterized as good and constructive. He now expected the new minister to follow up on the progress and to establish a dialogue with the bus manufacturers in all purchasing processes.

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The Tide director emphasized that the biggest challenge is that there is no separate standard that regulates safety around the workplace of bus drivers. This is in contrast to trucks and passenger cars, which benefit from established regulations that regulate collision safety.

In the absence of better requirements for the protection of bus drivers, the industry has therefore taken protective elements from regulations that apply to trucks. These include ECE R93, which is essentially a reinforcement at the very bottom of the front, the aim of which is to protect passenger cars from getting under a truck; and ECE R29-A, which strengthens the middle of the front and which will have an effect in a front-to-front collision, but which is likely to have limited effect in a side impact.

Own regulations

Sandvåg therefore called for a new, common and improved standard for all new buses in Norway. This standard must take into account both frontal and side collisions in all bus types. A separate ECE regulation must be developed that meets new requirements for a safety cage or deformation zone around the driver's seat, similar to the requirements for passenger cars.

Such a standard will safeguard the workplace of a large and important professional group – on an equal footing with car and truck drivers. Here, safety requirements must be set that are sufficiently tested and approved through crash tests, emphasizes Tide's technical director.

Calls for speed

He calls for progress in European and international work. Several serious accidents within a short period of time have increased the need for Norwegian transport authorities to intensify their efforts and accelerate their work in exerting pressure on relevant international bodies, so that enhanced driver safety is prioritized and standardized.

When we succeed in introducing stricter international requirements, it will ensure joint international and larger work on increased collision protection for all bus drivers, and contribute to the progress of work on increased safety among all bus manufacturers.

Sandvåg believes that the measures taken by the county municipal contracting authorities in isolation mean an improvement in driver safety. At the same time, he believes that the responsibility for deciding and ordering driver safety should not lie with and be up to the individual contracting authority, but should be managed from a higher level of authority; Norwegian, Nordic or international.

Short-term measures

He regrets that he cannot present a quick fix solution, but says that Tide is asking bus suppliers what they can deliver in terms of collision safety. If they can deliver ECE R29-A on the buses, this will be chosen regardless of whether this is required. He believes that such a requirement can be incorporated into the national regulations for licensed transport – a task that the country's new Minister of Transport took the initiative for in January (see pages 8-9) . The requirement can be incorporated into a common Nordic standard through Bus Nordic until there is an international standard specific to bus drivers.

– I don't understand that anyone disagrees about the goals. If we move in the same direction, we will succeed, concluded Tide's technical director Jan-Helge Sandvåg in his introduction in Bodø.