As Hector Fratty explained in his 17 September editorial , DVN received a strong reaction to the previous week’s in-depth report, on a new type of turn signal and the associated regulatory and patent issues. I was one of the readers who expressed dissatisfaction at the content of the article but due to my sensitive role as GTB President. I considered that my detailed concerns should not be published and indeed it was sufficient for me to know that DVN had understood that it had deviated from its normal high editorial standards.
Having read Hector editorial and Daniel Stern’s in-depth article “ Getting It All The Way Right ”, I recalled my comments published in the DVN editorial of 31 May 2010 titled “GTB Faces New Challenges”. In this editorial, I wrote (in the context of the adaptive main beam development):
“The current activity to introduce Adaptive Main Beam into the regulations is a good example where industry developed the technology and obtained type approvals from some authorities who gave favourable interpretations to allow the systems to be launched. Subsequent to this, it became apparent that other authorities could not agree with these interpretations and then GTB was asked to develop the necessary amendments to the regulations. (…) There must be a better way that we can all work together to ensure that the regulations are aligned to the new technologies. (…) There is also a challenge for GTB members who will have to find a way of anticipating the need to develop the regulations at an early stage of new technology development by identifying basic issues to be addressed without divulging commercial confidentiality.”
Now, more than three years later, the lighting community again finds itself in difficulty. This time we are trying to introduce suitable provisions into the regulations to allow the installation of a lighting system that is subject to a favourable interpretation by an approval authority whilst it is unacceptable to other authorities. Since I took responsibility for GTB in October 2008, I can recall similar situations for interdependent signal lamps, automatic activation of the main beam, adaptive main beam, 25W gas discharge lamps, and now sequential direction indicators. All of these instances have created a major task for GTB, as the expert group capable of developing the necessary amendments to the regulations, but having to work under time pressure to establish a level playing field.
It is clear that the pace of technological innovation in the field of vehicle lighting is increasing as never before.