Automatic Daytime Running Lights (DRLs) will become required equipment on all new vehicles in the EU from 2011, under rekindled road safety proposals from Brussels.

The European Commission estimates that this could help save 2,000 lives per year.

This Belgian motorist agrees the move would clearly increase visibility in traffic.

But EU governments, industry and road-user associations objected to a previous attempt to make this law.

They said at the lights would make it harder to see motorcyclists.

This time around, the Federation of European Motorcyclists Associations has cautiously welcomed the directive, as long as the DRLs are strictly different from the two-wheelers’ dipped-beam headlights.

If the rules pass muster in the European Parliament, they would come into effect for cars on February 2011, and for trucks and buses 18 months later.

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