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Care needed implementing new approval legislation
Page 30
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I HAVE just spent several happy hours skimming through the 369 pages of the latest draft of the EC whole-vehicle type approval legislation. My conclusion: if we have problems implementing this regulation with regard to class-N vehicles (CVs rather than PCVs ) we will only have ourselves and our legislators to blame.
While implementation of this directive is four or five years away, for CVs the die will be cast this year. I know the Department for Transport is very concerned, as is everyone else, about the number of inspectors needed to examine new vehicles and what it will cost.
In my opinion the solution lies in the revised draft. Most bodybuilders work on chassiscabs and keep the body to the design criteria laid down by the chassis manufacturer.The draft allows for multi-stage type approval, the proviso being that any changes to a prior approval — eg the chassis manufacturer's approval invalidates that part of the original approval.
It also allows for 'virtual testing' of components providing that the mathematical model used is approved and can be verified by examining a finished product:Ibis is no more than an axle-load calculation with a few dimensions thrown in; something that tipping gear manufacturers have been supplying for years and bodybuilders calculate as a matter of course for fixed bodies.
The second stage of a multistage approval should, in my opinion, be a paper exercise with verification being randomly carried out by Vosa as allowed for in the draft.The few chassis that are modified sufficiently to invalidate the manufacturer's approval could then be taken to a test centre and those changed items re-examined.
What we do not need is a complex and expensive test programme that goes beyond the requirements of the draft.This would destroy not encourage competition.
The problem is that the opinion of a relatively small time, if noisy, player such as myself does not count for much in the great scheme of things... we need a heavyweight to make this point to the Department for Transport.
Brian Alcock