According to information available to the Commission, the tunnel has now been equipped with modern safety devices under French and Italian responsibility.

Bearing this in mind, the Commission emphasises the need to develop modern ICT-based safety systems.

ICT in vehicles: a modern safety system

The fact of the matter is that in a modern democratic state, the state security corps and the military have to be subordinate to the civilian power – that is the definition of a modern democratic state.

Regarding active safety, industry has taken three additional initiatives: firstly, to equip new vehicles with ABS from 2003 onwards, secondly, to introduce daytime running lights on all vehicles from 2002 (it should be noted that this refers only to the technical prescription of DRL, but it does not supersede national laws on the use of DRL), and, last but not least, industry is committed to progress and report systematically on the introduction of additional active safety devices to improve pedestrian protection, such as adaptive speed limiting devices.

As for the use of technical security and authentication devices, the interested parties called for legislation prohibiting the manufacture and distribution of illegal technical devices, and providing channels for recourse against tampering with legitimate devices.