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Make them liable and their insurer will tell them to upgrade their trucks. As soon as you make this about money, the problem goes away. Right now the issue is "

Make them liable and their insurer will tell them to upgrade their trucks. As soon as you make this about money, the problem goes away. Right now the issue is "oops I did it again" style accidents where everybody just shrugs "what can you do?!" and "that's just the way things work". As soon as people are on the spot for millions in damages, they'll start getting very pro-active about preventing that from happening. And in the business world that means insurers start paying attention because it's them that pay these damages. That's also what has driven safety changes in passenger cars. Cars have all sorts of technology on board to keep drivers and other traffic participants safe. Liability insurance is not optional so insurers are on the spot when things go badly wrong. So, technology that saves lives saves them money. So, they apply pressure and incentives to make sure vehicle owners buy vehicles where they can get favorable insurance rates. The reason that so far hasn't happened with trucks is because police and judges go easy on the truckers when bad stuff happens. So they aren't on the spot financially and their insurers aren't either. It's not their problem. Making it their problem is the fix.

mschuster91 3y ago
> That's also what has driven safety changes in passenger cars. No, it's not - at least not in Europe. As long as a vehicle complies to the standards in force when it was built and the type license issued to the manufacturer then, you're not required to retrofit anything to old(er) vehicles. You're still allowed to drive a 70s era car with no seatbelts and only a driver side mirror if you want to do so. Change got always enforced by lawmakers - for example, people didn't flock to ABS equipped cars for decades, until the car industry agreed to only sell cars with ABS back in 2004. Hell it took until 2006 for an EU mandate for seat belts for rear passengers.
- throwawaymobule 3y ago
  wouldn't that mostly be covered under various member state's laws? Iirc, you'd still get charged here if you weren't wearing a seatbelt even if the car was missing them. (based on my limited experience riding in the back of vans with no rear seats.)

mschuster91 3y ago

> That's also what has driven safety changes in passenger cars. No, it's not - at least not in Europe. As long as a vehicle complies to the standards in force when it was built and the type license issued to the manufacturer then, you're not required to retrofit anything to old(er) vehicles. You're still allowed to drive a 70s era car with no seatbelts and only a driver side mirror if you want to do so. Change got always enforced by lawmakers - for example, people didn't flock to ABS equipped cars for decades, until the car industry agreed to only sell cars with ABS back in 2004. Hell it took until 2006 for an EU mandate for seat belts for rear passengers.

throwawaymobule 3y ago
wouldn't that mostly be covered under various member state's laws? Iirc, you'd still get charged here if you weren't wearing a seatbelt even if the car was missing them. (based on my limited experience riding in the back of vans with no rear seats.)