Goodbye, warning triangle? According to the Highway Code, the reflective warning triangle is one of the "safety kit" items that every vehicle must carry.
Let's do a quick review. It is a portable warning sign, which not by chance echoes the triangular shape of road signs indicating critical situations on the road. It must be used – day and night – to signal the presence of a stopped vehicle or an accident that is not clearly visible to approaching vehicles. For this purpose, it must be placed at least 50 meters before the critical situation. In addition to being necessary to ensure safety, having the triangle on board avoids incurring penalties: a fine of up to 170 euros and a deduction of 2 license points.
To get out of the car and place the triangle, it is mandatory to wear a reflective vest. The vest is not listed among the mandatory equipment, but it is de facto included in the list since it is required to exit a broken-down car. Beyond the obligations, it is certainly essential at night to ensure visibility when venturing onto a dark roadway. Don't forget it and – most importantly – keep it in the passenger compartment, not in the trunk!
But back to "goodbye, warning triangle." A proposal is emerging in Europe to replace it with a V16 flashing light to be placed on the car roof, simply by extending one's arm out the window. Like police sirens, to be clear. The initiative comes from Spain, which already has the use of this device in force, although both signaling systems – the triangle and the V16 – will be legal until the end of 2025. But from January 2026, the triangle will be definitively retired, and all Iberian motorists will have to carry the V16 flashing lights in their "evolved version." Already available but not yet mandatory, these flashing lights are equipped with geolocation and connected via data SIM to the cloud of the Dirección General de Tráfico. The signal of a broken-down vehicle reaches, via the cloud, other connected vehicles and the road network control room, which updates the variable message signs on the roads.
We await developments in the rest of the EU.
