The EU wants to make carmakers put breathalyzers and speed regulators in its cars by 2022

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It’s a big week for legislation in the EU, with the soon-to-be-disastrous Article 13 copyright laws voted in yesterday. Today it’s the turn of safety features for your car, with an agreement on rules stating that all cars built after May 2022 and sold in the EU need to have breathalyzers that won’t allow the car to start if the driver is intoxicated, plus built-in speed limiters.

Those rules are expected to be ratified by the European Parliament in September. Interestingly, even with Brexit looming over the UK, it will be adopting at least part of the new rules even if it does shoot itself in the foot by leaving the EU.

Overall the list of mandatory new safety features for cars has some pretty good common-sense rules, fully taking advantage of the advancements of modern technology.

READ MORE: Apple patent reveals a breathalyzer test for the iPhone and Car Key

That includes things like lane assistance, a “black box”-type data recorder to help with incident investigations, advanced emergency braking, drowsiness, and distraction monitoring, cameras/sensors for reversing assistance, and tire pressure monitoring. The list also includes an in-car breathalyzer, which won’t let you start the car if you’re intoxicated when breathing into it.

Most of these new safety features on the list already come as a standard feature on some new cars, although primarily in the mid-to-luxury range

The 2022 start date for the rules going into force is presumably in part to let automakers retool their production lines and redesign their lower-range models so that the needed safety features can be added. It might also indicate that’s when they estimate those safety features to have reduced in price enough that they can be included without changing the base price of the vehicle, as it’s usually a couple of years after the introduction of advanced features on the luxury ranges that carmakers start to add them to the cheaper models.

Every year 25,000 people lose their lives on our roads. This has to end!
With the new advanced #carsafety features that will become mandatory, we can have the same kind of impact as when the safety belts were first introduced #GeneralSafetyRegulation https://t.co/3D9LTJoV0l pic.twitter.com/zcQKAIgbcC

— Elżbieta Bieńkowska (@EBienkowskaEU) March 26, 2019

Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska put out a full statement on the regulation, adding that “25,000 people lose their lives on our roads,” as the driving force behind the new rules.

With the new advanced safety features that will become mandatory, we can have the same kind of impact as when the safety belts were first introduced.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.