Dirk Zedler: On principle, I welcome it a lot when the tests become more comprehensive and transparent. The currently available free spaces and the latest incomplete standards allow results - to put it cautiously - that are partly worthy of discussion, as recently that of Stiftung Warentest.
Uniform, verifiable tests with realistic criteria and, which should not be neglected, realistic clamping conditions would simplify the life of many parties in the sector and enhance after all safe products for the end consumer.
The crux of the European production of standards is however that the high demands required by the markets in countries like Germany, find little understanding in other countries. In addition, the legitimized European production of standards is unfortunately very slow due to the big number of parties involved. Another deficiency in my opinion is that the cooperation is penalised rather than rewarded taking account of the high travel expenses and the absence from your actual working place.
Even if ZEG themselves cannot launch a standard, it could be possible that under their direction and with certain financial resources for the parties involved a nearly comprising standard is established which would have the character of an own standard, as shown e.g. by the automotive industry.
Prerequisite for such an aim would be a competently led working group with a sound mixture and a reasonable number of experienced representatives of universities, test laboratories, consumer protection organizations and manufacturers.
These minimum regulations worked out and accepted from the parties involved could subsequently be tabled as draft standard at the CEN by the German representation.
Furthermore, it should be left to each manufacturer to perform available test procedures beyond the criteria with more load cycles or higher loads, to determine a higher load bearing capacity and riding safety for their products. In this way, we've already established our Basic, Advanced and Advanced+ test scenarios which are based on the European standard, but are clearly more comprehensive by offering the manufacturers an assignment to application fields. The experiences our customers made with this are positive.
In case ZEG will call, we are prepared to cooperate.
