Amendment to HGV safety standard is improving safety for vulnerable road users

More than a year on from its implementation, an amendment to HGV safety standards secured thanks to funding from The Road Safety Trust, is helping to improve safety for vulnerable road users.

UNECE Regulation 167 aims to maximise the area around a vehicle cab which can be directly seen through the windows of the HGV – known as direct vision.

This is particularly important when it comes to reducing collisions between HGVs and vulnerable road users.

Researchers from Loughborough University, funded by The Road Safety Trust, found potential problems with the regulation, first introduced in 2022, where manufacturers could enhance frontal visibility without genuinely improving safety.

Their work comprised multiple studies, which were conducted to explore different methods of defining frontal visibility volumes and then test their effectiveness.

This led to the development of a more robust approach, which was put forward as an amendment to UNECE Regulation 167.

The final amendment proposed includes a two-stage assessment of frontal visibility volumes, ensuring that vehicles meet both a general frontal visibility standard and specific visibility in the most critical zones directly in front of the vehicle.

The amendment was successfully passed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in 2024, ensuring that the regulation maintains its effectiveness in improving road safety for vulnerable road users.

Ahead of Road Safety Week 2025, which carries the theme of safe vehicles, The Road Safety Trust caught up with Dr Steve Summerskill, who led the project at Loughborough University.

Since securing the amendment, Dr Summerskill has been working with authorities across the world to implement similar standards.

Dr Summerskill said: “The work funded by The Road Safety Trust greatly improved the rigour and application of the methods that we designed in UNECE 167.

“This has led to further international interest in our work and methods, resulting in a project with the Canadian and Australian governments to define a version of UNECE 167 for North American HGV designs.

“The Road Safety Trust provided great support during our project. It is a great organisation to work with.”

19 November 2025