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Lorry cabs that could help save up to 1,000 lives a year will not be brought in until at least 2015 after EU negotiations became deadlocked.

The introduction of cabs with sloping fronts, which eliminate blind spots for drivers and cause less serious injuries to cyclists and pedestrians, was a key feature of Mayor Boris Johnson’s recent initiative to improve lorry safety.

In July, he said he would lobby Brussels for the cab redesign and from next year will impose £200-a-day fines on HGVs entering London without safety features such as side panels and mirrors to eliminate cyclist blind spots.

Eight cyclists have died on London’s roads this year, including 21-year-old French student Philippine De Gerin-Ricard, the first person to be killed on a Boris bike. She died in a collision with a lorry on a notorious stretch of cycle superhighway in Aldgate in July.

Experts claim the cab redesign will prevent 1,000 deaths a year in Europe, as well as an 8 per cent increase in fuel efficiency, thanks to the sloped front and a redesigned tail. Such designs are not prohibited but operators prefer flat-fronted trucks that maximise payloads.

Manufacturers Skania and MAN favour the new cabs, but Daimler, the largest manufacturer, is fiercely opposed because it wants to recoup the development costs of its new fleet.

However, regulations to make them compulsory are deadlocked, with the proposal becoming tangled up in other measures to standardise lorry sizes across the Continent. Siim Kallas, the European Commission’s transport commissioner, said the plans had been “politically hijacked”. He accused environmental groups and Austria of blocking the new design because they feared the legislation was being used to bring in longer lorries.

“I’m getting very frustrated that these proposals on the design of cabins are being blocked by something that is unrelated,” said Mr Kallas.

It is now believed that a final decision will be put back until 2015 followed by a further delay while manufacturers are given a chance to respond.

But Jos Dings, director of Brussels-based sustainable transport lobby group Transport & Environment, said: “The biggest fear is that the premise of better-designed trucks will be sacrificed by the hapless performance of the Commission.”

Natalie Chapman, head of policy for London for the Freight Transport Association said: “FTA is fully supportive and engaged in the discussions taking place with the European Commission.”

Mr Johnson said he will write to Mr Kallas to demand action: “I would be deeply concerned if life-saving plans for safer lorry designs, for which I have strongly lobbied the EU, were to get bogged down in horse-trading.”