CITA contributes to Global NCAP–EASST event
On 16 September 2026, CITA participated in the hybrid event “Ensuring Safe and Sustainable Vehicles in EBRD Countries”, organized by Global NCAP and EASST and hosted at the EBRD headquarters in London.
The event brought together representatives from EBRD, EASST and Global NCAP, alongside road safety specialists from the FIA Foundation, CITA and the Automobile Club of Moldova, to discuss vehicle safety and sustainable transport policies. The programme was structured around two sessions addressing progress and priorities for vehicle safety, as well as the role of vehicles within sustainable transport.
CITA was represented online by Eduard Fernández, Executive Director, who delivered the presentation “Vehicle Roadworthiness and the Role of Data” during the session dedicated to Vehicles and Sustainable Transport.
In his presentation, Fernández highlighted the importance of considering vehicle safety throughout the entire vehicle lifecycle. Vehicles can undergo repairs, modifications, changes of ownership or use, maintenance, breakdowns and crashes between their initial registration and their eventual end of life or export.
In this context, periodic vehicle inspection provides an essential mechanism for verifying that vehicles continue to meet appropriate safety and environmental requirements while in use. The presentation highlighted evidence from several countries illustrating the contribution of vehicle inspection to road safety and environmental protection, including studies from Costa Rica, Türkiye, Spain, the United States and Slovakia.
A central message of CITA’s contribution was the importance of reliable data for understanding the role of vehicle condition in road crashes. As Fernández stressed, the quality of the information available from crash investigations directly influences the conclusions that can be drawn and, consequently, the policy decisions that follow.
The presentation referred to research showing significant differences between standard and in-depth collision investigations. According to a TRL study cited by CITA, a standard collision investigation carried out by a trained police officer would identify around half of the vehicle defects categorized as dangerous, while an in-depth investigation by an expert collision investigator could identify 88% of such defects, provided they were not hidden by collision damage.
Further evidence presented for Germany illustrated the same challenge: regular crash analysis identifies vehicle technical defects in less than 0,8% of crashes, whereas in-depth crash analysis found that 6,41% of passenger cars with crash-relevant technical defects were involved in serious crashes.
CITA’s participation in the event reinforced the importance of integrating vehicle roadworthiness and robust data analysis into the broader Safe System approach.
Reliable information on vehicle condition is essential not only to understand crash causation more accurately, but also to support evidence-based decisions on vehicle inspection policies and contribute to safer and more sustainable mobility.