01476929

Component

http://www.trb.org/Publications/Blurbs/168537.aspx

The rules to be used on roads for traffic safety are not well known at all levels, and now in Europe there is a lot of talk about European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) standards. The standards comefrom European Parliament and Commission decisions which mandate that the work have CE (Conformité Européenne) marking on products, which is necessary when circulating in Europe and legally sold on the market. Some national authorities were quite happy to replace former homologations with the new marking, but this regulation refers just to products and producers. It is mainly a declaration in an agreed form of some main performances by a producer which bears the responsibility of what he declares, even if the procedure may involve third parties like “notified” certification bodies. It is worth remembering that it all started in 1985, when a decision of the European Council, called New Approach, requested that some essential requirements in matter of safety, determined by the European Commission, should be harmonized and written into standards to be respected by products willing to circulate within the European Union (EU). The producer becomes responsible for the product and declares conformity to requirements through CE marking. Actuation came through the Construction Products Directive (CPD, CEE 89/106), which gave the floor to numerous standards and was recently superseded by CPR (Construction Products Regulation), which will become fully operative by July 1, 2013. In case of road restraint systems, the harmonized standard is European Normative (EN) 1317-5, which is the general approach to requirements and products evaluation, and the specific Annex ZA, which dictates the rules for CE marking. At this time, all 27 member countries of the EU apply this standard and the consequence is a fairly good leveling of the main performances of the safety products. However, this is just half of the problem. Still needed to be defined is what to install where, i.e., the installation rules, which until up to now were strictly defined by each country. Some countries have already had rules for several years, others have produced them recently, and others still do not have anything specific. The result is a discrepancy on the market and on the safety level on roads of different countries. This paper contains some examples from main European countries.

01476927

English

pp 28-37

2013-2

Transportation Research Circular

Roadside Safety Design and Devices: International Workshop

Web

Figures; Tables

Design standards; Highway design; Highway safety; Regulations; Roadside; Safety equipment

European Normative Standards

Roadside safety hardware

Europe

Design; Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I20: Design and Planning of Transport Infrastructure; I85: Safety Devices used in Transport Infrastructure

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Mar 19 2013 11:29AM

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