Citation

Henssler H. Int. J. Veh. Des. 1986; 7(5-6): 18-28.

Affiliation

Commission of the European Communities, Brussels, Belgium.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1986, Inderscience Publishers)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper reviews the objectives and procedures of the EEC type-approval system for motor vehicles, and discusses in detail one of the main issues with which it is most concerned, traffic safety. The Global Approach, developed in response to the increasing rate of technological innovation, is introduced and the next generation of European safety regulations and procedures for formulating them are discussed. It is seen that, in future, the Commission of the European Communities will strive for more performance-related, rather than design-related, specifications in its directives and the development of an integrated whole-vehicle test procedure, to be offered to manufacturers as an alternative to the traditional component-approval procedures.