Third in a series by Daniel Stern, DVN General Editor
In Part 1 of this series, we examined automaker clamour for more commonality between US and UN vehicle safety regulations. Part 2 focused on political barriers to harmonisation. Now we’ll look at some of the legal factors that complicate the situation.
As far as the science is concerned, a vehicle with a UN lighting configuration is about as safe as a vehicle with a US lighting configuration, with a few plus/minus points in both directions: side marker lights and reflectors required on US but not UN vehicles, side turn signal repeaters and yellow rear turn signals required on UN but not US vehicles, etc. It’s a reasonably agreeable proposition that the safety performance differences aren’t big enough to justify the regulatory differences between US and UN regulations. The same may well be true of differences between UN regulations and those of various other countries not party to the 1958 Agreement—India, China, Brazil, and more.
Given the very wide adoption or acceptance of UN Regulations round the world, it is easy and tempting for the vehicle lighting practitioner to see countries with their own UN-divergent regulations as stubborn outliers: Why won’t they just acknowledge the global consensus and sign the damn treaty? Such thinking is erroneous because in fact there’s often much more to the matter than just technical factors of safety performance and political factors of trade and market control. There are substantial matters of national law that can stand in the way of a country acceding to the 1958 Agreement.
Consider perhaps the most notable non-participant, the United States. If the US were to sign the 1958 Agreement, there would surely be benefits. The US and the considerable collective smarts of its research community and experience of its industry would have a seat at the table for developing the technical standards and regulations. However, this benefit would simultaneously be a drawback: the US—the world’s second-largest auto market, with a big, important auto industry—would have a seat at the table. One seat. Only one seat, for the 1958 Agreement is set up on a one-country, one-vote basis. That would effectively nullify the US voice on most questions and neuter its contributions. Where US proposals and positions differ from European and Asian practice, the relatively enormous US auto industry, auto safety research community, and vehicle market would in all likelihood be overruled by a plurality of votes from a list of countries whose collective industry, research body, and market are comparatively tiny.