Some time ago, we circulated a preliminary agenda for the second American Driving Vision News workshop coming up soon in January. We received a fair amount of feedback asking why regulations are missing as a discussion topic. Thanks for raising that objection—we’ve heard you, and we’ve added regulatory topics to the docket.
The main rubric for discussion will be the persistent large differences between UN and US/SAE specifications. We are now in a global industry and a global energy price increase; competition is worldwide and road infrastructure and vehicle mix variance among the world’s countries aren’t nearly so great as they used to be. Scientifically, it is difficult to find any traffic safety data to support most of the differences between the lighting requirements in North America and those used elsewhere in the world. And as a percentage of the worldwide vehicle sales volume, the regulatory “North American island” is shrinking year by year. In that context, it seems increasingly difficult from many perspectives within our community to justify the continued existence of such a gap in regulatory philosophy, structure, and content. Harmonisation efforts have been under way for many years, but they proceed at a very slow pace and sometimes reach impasse on philosophical grounds.
Clearly, new strategies and approaches are needed for listening and talking and agreeing. For this reason, I propose a workshop lecture by Geoff Draper and Bart Terburg, two of our community’s finest experts in worldwide regulations, about the main differences in lighting between UN and US/SAE. Then, in the afternoon, we will have a panel discussion on the subject with the experts and decision makers in regulations.
Indeed, after a very interesting first workshop, allowing open debate, this second panel discussion will provide a forum to air perspectives, perceptions, ideas, and suggestions about how to move forward most productively towards truly global specifications for vehicle lighting systems.
Sincerely yours,
DVN Editor in Chief