For a few days, half the Italian press has been reporting the same news: from 7 July 2026, the rear brake lights of new cars would flash during emergency braking, an absolute novelty imposed by Brussels. It’s a shame that the obligation has already existed for two years. The text of EU Regulation 2019/2144, the one that really regulates the matter, puts it in black and white: the Emergency Stop Signal is mandatory for type-approval from 6 July 2022 and for all new registrations (including those deriving from older type-approvals) from 7 July 2024. Anyone who has bought a new car in the last two years, in short, already has it, that what really happens today is something else, and in a certain sense it is more interesting and concerns the installation of a camera pointed at the driver’s face, which becomes mandatory on every new car sold in the Union.
What really changes on July 7, 2026
The system is called Advanced Driver Distraction Warning (ADDW) and is part of the same regulatory package as the ESS, the General Safety Regulation (the aforementioned EU Regulation 2019/2144, also known as GSR2). The technical specifications were set by the European Commission with Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2590, which establishes two distinct deadlines: homologation obligation from 7 July 2024, registration obligation (therefore for every new car sold, regardless of when the model was approved) from 7 July 2026.
How the anti-distraction camera works
The principle of the ADDW is different from the more well-known one of the drowsiness detector (which is actually a distinct system, the Driver Drowsiness and Attention Warning, governed by another delegated regulation, 2021/1341). The ADDW doesn’t measure tiredness, it monitors where the driver is looking. A camera in the passenger compartment follows the direction of the gaze and, if this remains fixed for a prolonged time on areas considered at risk (such as the lap, the passenger footwell, the central dashboard, basically anywhere except the road) the system triggers a warning. The testing procedures envisaged by the delegated regulation are decidedly meticulous: the technicians verify the system’s response by having the driver fix specific points in the passenger compartment (the knee, the glove compartment, the air vents) both at low speed and at high speed, with the possibility of repeating the test up to two times in the event of no alarm. On the privacy front, Regulation 2019/2144 requires that these systems operate in a closed circuit, so data cannot be stored beyond the time necessary for processing, nor shared with third parties. It will then be necessary to consider any national regulations, usually more stringent on video surveillance and processing of personal data, which the European regulation does not affect.
Who is involved and who is not
As with the ESS, the obligation concerns new registrations, therefore, those who already own a car do not have to install anything, and there is no retroactive update. The requirement applies to all vehicles in categories M and N, therefore cars, vans, trucks and buses, regardless of the date of approval of the model. Furthermore, the GSR2 package proceeds with staggered deadlines well beyond 2026, given that some systems for heavy vehicles, I am thinking of the black box for buses and trucks, will only become mandatory in January 2029, while other requirements on pedestrian protection will arrive as late as 2034.
