Hector Fratty

I was very interested in your 01 December 2015 editorial (“Hitting Reset on Regulatory Priorities“) and I would like to thank you for the appreciation of the work that GTB is doing and your observations concerning the important challenges that will have to be confronted.

In my view GTB is a unique group that has to be managed in an equally unique way. We are a global association of vehicle lighting experts with the prime focus on good, fit for purpose, regulation. Naturally our main focus is with the UNECE process of the WP29 World Forum but there is increasing emphasis upon the countries using the technical requirements of the UN regulations whilst not being signatories to the UN 1958 agreement. GTB is NOT an industry association and we have no motivation to interfere in the good work of associations such as OICA, CLEPA, and IMMA; indeed, many of the members of these associations also bring their individual expertise to the work of GTB. Our work is focussed on technical / safety issues and certainly has to consider cost / benefit issues of a generic, non-commercial nature.

We are very proud of our UN ECOSOC special consultative status accreditation that gives us the possibility to fully contribute to the work of WP29 and GRE. However, this means that we are under constant scrutiny by ECOSOC that imposes a heavy duty to operate GTB according to its statute and by-laws. In turn this means that we shall strive to reach consensus on the adaption of regulations to technical progress and we shall do this without allowing commercial competitive interests to interfere with our important work. Of course we fully understand, and support, the need to remove unnecessary barriers to innovation.