The major study was commissioned by the car industry to show that current U.S. and EU safety standards were very similar, The Independent reported.
But that’s not what the research found. Instead, it showed that American cars are definitely not as safe when it comes to front-side collisions, a common cause of accidents that frequently result in serious injuries.
The findings were not submitted, or announced publicly by the industry bodies that funded the study.
The research shows that trade negotiators would possibly be placing lives in danger by allowing U.S.-approved vehicles to be sold in Europe and vice-versa.
The news spotlights a global industry already in hot water following the Volkswagen emissions scandal earlier this week.
The research was sponsored by the Washington-based Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM), and the study was announced in a joint press release with the European car lobby ACEA and the American Automobile Policy Council, the Independent reports.
These giants in the automotive industry represent the biggest names, including Chrysler, Toyota, Jaguar Land Rover and Volkswagen.
As the second- and third-largest vehicle producers worldwide, according to Common Dreams , the E.U.and U.S. combined account for about one-third of the world’s global vehicle production, according to a report prepared by the Congressional Research Service in 2014.
When announcing that the report had been commissioned in May 2014, industry lobbyists said that “under a TTIP, the two regions would represent the largest share of auto production and sales ever covered by a single trade agreement.”
In a briefing published on Thursday, the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), a non-profit based in Brussels, reported “The car industry is hoping to be one of the biggest beneficiaries from a TTIP agreement, partly by removing tariffs on imports, but mainly by removal of so-called non-tariff measures (NTMs).
In 2013, the AAM stated that regulatory differences between the U.S. and E.U. “can act as non-tariff barriers to trade,” translating into higher costs for consumers, Common Dreams reports.
That led the ETSC to note “carmakers on both sides of the Atlantic have argued that safety standards are equivalent, i.e., not the same, but offer similar outcomes.”
Obviously the auto industry’s hushed-up report shows that isn’t the case.
So on Thursday, the ETSC declared wasn’t comprehensive enough to be considered equivalent either full or in part and said the situation isn’t likely to change within the deadline for the TTIP negotiations at the end of the year.
It also said that the process in which the current work is being done isn’t transparent or open enough, especially in regards to public policy on vehicle safety, “which is quite literally a matter of life and death,” the ETSC said.
Part of the problem is that the E.U.’s research and position papers regarding vehicle safety for the TTHIP have only been made available for scrutiny by the public and by experts after they have already been discussed by trade negotiators, the ETSC said.
The best approach would be to remove vehicle safety harmonization from TTIP negotiations.
The study was conducted by independent researchers at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute and the Safer Transportation Research Centre at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, Mail Online reports.
“The results of our study indicate that there is currently a risk difference with respect to the risk of injury given a crash between E.U. specification cars and U.S. models,” said Andras Balint, a traffic safety analyst at the Swedish research centre and a co-author of the study.
“Therefore, based on these results, immediate recognition of U.S. vehicles in the E.U. could potentially result in a greater number of fatalities or serious injuries in road traffic,” he said. “The potential impact is difficult to quantify because it depends on a number of other parameters.”
ETSC member Antonio Avenoso said “This study shows that the E.U. and U.S. trade negotiators would potentially be putting lives in danger by allowing vehicles approved in the U.S. to be sold today in Europe and vice-versa.
“What’s needed is an open and transparent process for getting both sides up to the highest-level of safety across all vehicles,” he said. “Clearly without much more research and analysis, including vehicle safety standards in the TTIP agreement would be irresponsible.”
Round two of the next formal TTIP negotiations begins next month, and the proposed free trade deal is set to become the biggest deal of this sort ever made, the Independent reports.
It’s likely the motor vehicle sector will be the biggest beneficiary; harmonization of auto regulations across the Atlantic may bring in over €18 billion per year for the European Union and the U.S. economies, according to a study by the U.S. think-tank Petersen Institute of International Economics reported earlier this year.
