Toyota renews its commitment to road safety
Toyota Motor Europe (TME) today announced four initiatives illustrating the company's commitment towards road safety in Europe:
&bull Vehicle Stability Control will be available on most Toyota models as of May 2007
&bull Toyota will join the eSafetyAware! Platform, a pan-European initiative promoting life saving technologies to the consumers
&bull A Stakeholder Dialogue on Road Safety will be hosted by TME in Brussels on April 26th, 2007 during the UN Global Road Safety Week and &bull The 4th Red Cross European Road Safety campaign will be sponsored by Toyota.
Expanding the application of active safety technologies
Toyota will make Vehicle Stability Control (VSC) available across the European Union on most Toyota models, regardless of grade and equipment level from 1 May 2007 with other models following by the end of the year 1.
Toyota has developed a wide range of technologies, which seek to ensure the highest possible level of safety. Among them, VSC is an active safety system that automatically helps control a vehicle when it starts to slide — due to a sharp turn at too high speed, for example. Toyota launched the world's first VSC system in 1995. According to accident analyses in Japan, VSC can reduce single vehicle accidents by up to 30%.
Joining the eSafetyAware! Platform
Intelligent vehicle safety systems - so called eSafety systems - can make a significant contribution to achieve the goal of halving the number of road deaths by 2010, target of the European Union. eSafetyAware! seeks to accelerate the market introduction of such life-saving technologies by organising information campaigns and dedicated events towards end-users.
Toyota Motor Europe has therefore decided to join the eSafetyAware! Platform and will take part in the "Choose ESC!" campaign to be launched on 8 May 2007. This campaign, which is supported by the European Commission, is a major pan-European initiative to promote consumer awareness of the life-saving potential of Electronic Stability Control (ESC) systems.
1 The only exception will be base grade Land Cruiser, for which it is not at present feasible for technical reasons.
Stakeholder Dialogue on Road Safety
Toyota Motor Europe today hosted a Stakeholder Dialogue on Road Safety, during the UN Global Road Safety week. This event provides a platform for a range of road safety NGOs, public authorities and other stakeholders to demonstrate their contributions in reducing the number of fatalities on Europe's roads. Particular focus was given to the protection of vulnerable road users, road safety promotion and education.
Mr. Tadashi Arashima, President and CEO Toyota Motor Europe, attended the event together with Mr. Jacques Barrot, Vice-President of the European Commission. Mr Arashima said: "As a major vehicle manufacturer, Toyota has a clear responsibility toward road safety. In addition to the development of new technologies in areas such as active and passive safety, we also want to cooperate closely with all stakeholders. Sharing best practice with all involved actors is in line with our commitment to the European Road Safety Charter which we recently signed"
Supporting the Red Cross Road Safety campaign
Between April 2007 and June 2008, the Red Cross will undertake a Europe-wide campaign to increase awareness, knowledge and respect of road safety rules and behaviours and promote first aid amongst the general public.
Toyota Motor Europe and its national marketing and sales companies have been partners of the Red Cross since 2003 and will once again support this campaign. This support will include both financial contributions and benefit-in-kind support (such as lending of vehicles, joint hosting of events etc) as Toyota and the Red Cross work together to improve road safety in Europe.