MEPs go for 2008 deadline
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THE EUROPEAN Parliament's Transport Committee is pushing for a binding deadline of 30 June 2008 for retrofitting heavy trucks in operation since 2000 with blindspot mirrors.
European Union ministers support a deadline that effectively falls three years after the approval of a proposed retrofitting directive that was tabled by the European Commission. MEPs debating this directive have branded the deadline "overly tardy".
In its report the committee says it does "not anticipate any practical problem in retrofitting lorries registered after 2000. The estimated cost would be fl00-150 [1704100] per lorry; the cost of one stop at a petrol station".
The report says this "could save up to 1,200 lives in Europe by 2020, many of them kids on bikes who are killed when lorry drivers changing direction at a crossing or roundabout fail to see them in a blind spot."
Under a 2003 EU directive, new trucks must be equipped with blind-spot mirrors from this year.