Without prejudice to the provisions laid down in the second subparagraph of Article 12(1), the Commission shall, by 7 November 2016, submit a report to the European Parliament and to the Council on the application of this Directive by the Member States. In its report, the Commission shall focus in particular on, and shall, as appropriate, make proposals to cover, the following aspects:

• an assessment of whether other road-safety-related traffic offences should be added to the scope of this Directive,

• an assessment of the effectiveness of this Directive on the reduction in the number of fatalities on Union roads,

• an assessment of the need for developing common standards for automatic checking equipment and for procedures. In this context, the Commission is invited to develop at Union level road safety guidelines within the framework of the common transport policy in order to ensure greater convergence of the enforcement of road traffic rules by Member States through comparable methods and practices. These guidelines may cover at least the offences listed in points (a) to (d) of Article 2,

• an assessment of the need to strengthen the enforcement of sanctions with regard to road-safety-related traffic offences and to propose common criteria concerning the follow-up procedures in the case of non-payment of a financial penalty, within the framework of all relevant Union policies, including the common transport policy,

• the possibilities for harmonising traffic rules where appropriate,

• an assessment of the software applications as referred to in Article 4(4), with a view to ensuring proper implementation of this Directive as well as guaranteeing an effective, expeditious, secure and confidential exchange of specific VRD.