The 110th GTB session of its General Assembly, Committee of Experts, Working Groups and Taskforces took place 2 weeks ago in Poland.
Since 1958, GTB sessions occur twice a year all over the world. It is an institution which is now well known in the automotive industry and has proved to be an example of how to elaborate good regulations in this industry.
As a result of these 110 sessions GTB has been the main contributor to the work of UNECE to establish all of the 42 lighting regulations.
Geoff Draper, president of GTB since 2008 is now doing a great job, trying to bring together the different positions of the automotive lighting industry. He is the best president GTB could have and I wish him a great success. GRE and WP29 now have more confidence and trust in GTB which is moving forward, focussing on safety and economics with more transparency in its works.
It is essential that all the members reach for a clear compromise before transmission of proposals to GRE. The greater the agreement between members, the bigger the chance to avoid any further changes detrimental to the lighting industry. But if there is no clear agreement, we face big risks that some coming decision might damage our interests.
Look at what’s happening today with Xenon 25W.
We have to achieve an agreement as soon as possible and divergence between members about the mandatory aspect of automatic levelling delays the process. As outlined in our DVN report already 2 years ago (see main conclusions in the attached document “Headlamp Aiming is Vital”), DVN has a clear position in favour of mandatory automatic levelling. Why?
Because +0.5° or -0.5° versus the optimised headlight aiming angle strongly increases glare (possibly X 5) or strongly reduce visibility distance (possibly /2). Too high aiming is the main reason why drivers consider Xenon light as glaring and too low aiming is why Xenon light is considered as not useful. Manual levelling devices are mandatory but most of drivers do not know they exist or do not operate them correctly.
I think the best solution for lighting is to convince ECE players that a mandatory automatic levelling is the best option with for example a short transition time for Xenon 25W and longer transition time for halogen….before trying to convince NHTSA to do the same in North America.