FIA World Prize 2007 goes to Bosch

Highest accolade for the Bosch Group: The FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) is to award the company the internationally acclaimed "FIA World Prize for Road Safety, the Environment and Mobility." With the award, the FIA is expressing its recognition of the great contribution the automotive supplier has made to worldwide road safety by developing and consistently marketing the ESP® safety system. FIA President Max Mosley presented the trophy to the CEO of Robert Bosch GmbH, Franz Fehrenbach, at the FIA gala in Monaco.

"Bosch has played a pivotal role in the development and promotion of the most effective car safety system since the invention of the safety belt”, Mosley explained. In his acceptance speech, Fehrenbach replied: “This prize is a distinction for all our associates: for the engineers who developed the system, for the associates in our plants who have been producing this system to the highest quality standards for many years now, and not least for the marketing experts who have never tired of communicating the benefits of this system.” The FIA World Prize is presented every year to a person or an organization that has made an outstanding contribution in the areas of road safety, the environment, or mobility.

International accident studies demonstrate that at least 40 per cent of all fatal traffic accidents are caused by skidding. Around 80 per cent of all skidding accidents could be prevented with ESP®. This year, a socioeconomic study by the University of Cologne showed that 4,000 traffic deaths and 100,000 injuries could be prevented in Europe alone if ESP® were installed in all vehicles. The U.S. road traffic agency NHTSA estimates that 10,000 traffic deaths on American roads could be prevented with ESP®. Bosch developed the active safety system and was the first company to put it on the market in 1995. “ESP® is a prime example of how innovative safety systems can improve road safety,” said Fehrenbach.

In 2006, 26 per cent of all new vehicles produced worldwide were equipped with ESP®. In the first half of 2007, the share of all newly registered cars in Europe was 47 per cent. In the US, legislation was passed in 2007 making ESP® mandatory standard equipment for all passenger cars from model year 2012. And the EU Commission has also announced its intention to mandate installation of the anti-skid system from 2011.

The NCAP (New Car Assessment Program) organizations around the world also recommend the use of ESP®. For example, since 2005 the European NCAP has recommended that car buyers only buy vehicles with ESP®. The NCAP association of Australasia (ANCAP) has gone one step further, and announced that only vehicles with ESP® will be given five stars from 2008 on.