Safety Standards Post Brexit

General cycling advice ( NOT technical ! )
st599_uk
Posts: 1092
Joined: 4 Nov 2018, 8:59pm

Re: Safety Standards Post Brexit

Post by st599_uk »

There's also the issue that if we do follow European Engineering Norms (EN documents), then we (the UK) will no longer have a say over the contents.
A novice learning...
“the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
fastpedaller
Posts: 3435
Joined: 10 Jul 2014, 1:12pm
Location: Norfolk

Re: Safety Standards Post Brexit

Post by fastpedaller »

st599_uk wrote:There's also the issue that if we do follow European Engineering Norms (EN documents), then we (the UK) will no longer have a say over the contents.

Did we have a say for the last 47 years?
st599_uk
Posts: 1092
Joined: 4 Nov 2018, 8:59pm

Re: Safety Standards Post Brexit

Post by st599_uk »

fastpedaller wrote:
st599_uk wrote:There's also the issue that if we do follow European Engineering Norms (EN documents), then we (the UK) will no longer have a say over the contents.

Did we have a say for the last 47 years?


Yes, many of the current norms have had a huge input from UK industry, either with the initial idea or with adjusting ideas to be suitable across Europe.
A novice learning...
“the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
wjhall
Posts: 265
Joined: 1 Sep 2014, 8:46am

Re: Safety Standards Post Brexit

Post by wjhall »

st599_uk wrote:
fastpedaller wrote:
st599_uk wrote:There's also the issue that if we do follow European Engineering Norms (EN documents), then we (the UK) will no longer have a say over the contents.

Did we have a say for the last 47 years?


Yes, many of the current norms have had a huge input from UK industry, either with the initial idea or with adjusting ideas to be suitable across Europe.


It is intended that UK membership of the standards bodies, CEN & CENELEC, will continue after the transition period and the BSI is working with other members to arrange this. This is clearer in the BSI video than the text, the video containing some additional sentences. (1)

CE marking is actually a EU legal requirement to certify, in some fields, that a product complies with the relevant laws, which may, but possibly does not necessarily imply, particular relevant standards. Presumably CE marking will no longer be required for goods sold in the UK after the transition, and may or not be replaced by an equivalent UK scheme, or become an acceptable equivalent.

I believe there is a general tendency to move yet further from national standards by generalising the use of ISO standards.

(1) https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/about-bs ... ng-the-eu/
Brucey
Posts: 44517
Joined: 4 Jan 2012, 6:25pm

Re: Safety Standards Post Brexit

Post by Brucey »

simonhill wrote:…. all for the bargain price of 2,190,000 Vn dong - about £70 to you and me.

Coming to a bike shop near you soon?


No sniggering at the back, the 'dong' is a perfectly sensible unit of currency and not at all humorous in any way.

cheers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Brucey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
User avatar
[XAP]Bob
Posts: 19793
Joined: 26 Sep 2008, 4:12pm

Re: Safety Standards Post Brexit

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Since the declared point of the whole silly exercise was to diverge from EU regulations... the only reason to leave the eu is to diverge downwards, because divergence upwards was already allowed.

Therefore we will diverge downwards - and since most bikes don’t go more than a few miles only a few of us will notice.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
DevonDamo
Posts: 1036
Joined: 24 May 2011, 1:42am

Re: Safety Standards Post Brexit

Post by DevonDamo »

[XAP]Bob wrote:Since the declared point of the whole silly exercise was to diverge from EU regulations... the only reason to leave the eu is to diverge downwards, because divergence upwards was already allowed.

Therefore we will diverge downwards - and since most bikes don’t go more than a few miles only a few of us will notice.


Can't fault your logic about there being no point leaving the EU in order to produce to quality higher than EN standards, when membership didn't prevent us from doing that anyway. However, the major determinant here is the economics of design/manufacture - it's much cheaper to mass-produce to a standard which is common across all your markets, which is the main reason why manufacturers love them. It's unlikely that we'll see manufacturers developing different, lower-quality product ranges for the UK because it's much cheaper to continue mass-producing to the current EN ISO standards, even though that may no longer be a statutory requirement.

10 years ago, I worked for the European Commission on a couple of product-related Directives and we had a constant stream of manufacturers' associations banging on our door, all trying to get their products captured within a regulatory framework supported by standards. The idea that removing red tape was supporting our Great British manufacturing industry made about as much sense as saying we're going to stop building/maintaining roads and railways to give the Great British traveller back his freedom to to make his own way in the world.
mikeymo
Posts: 2299
Joined: 27 Sep 2016, 6:23pm

Re: Safety Standards Post Brexit

Post by mikeymo »

[XAP]Bob wrote:Since the declared point of the whole silly exercise was to diverge from EU regulations... the only reason to leave the eu is to diverge downwards, because divergence upwards was already allowed.

Therefore we will diverge downwards - and since most bikes don’t go more than a few miles only a few of us will notice.


Perhaps more accurately - the whole point was to SAY we CAN diverge from EU regs. You know, the whole "taking back control, make our own laws" etc. etc. thing.

So a politician can say - "look we've just passed our very own BRITISH laws about x, y, z". And then the drafting clerks just use ctrl+c and ctrl+v to use exactly the same text. Safe in the knowledge that hardly anybody actually reads the text of documents.
notxal
Posts: 7
Joined: 3 Feb 2020, 6:37am

Re: Safety Standards Post Brexit

Post by notxal »

I recently wanted to import some powder coating kits from the US to resell but was hampered by the kits not being CE approved but they were approved to all the US standards.

Now we hopefully will be able to do this as we will probably have a much more intense trading relationship with the US and may accept their standards as good enough to resell in the UK.
User avatar
The utility cyclist
Posts: 3607
Joined: 22 Aug 2016, 12:28pm
Location: The first garden city

Re: Safety Standards Post Brexit

Post by The utility cyclist »

Bmblbzzz wrote:Point is we don't need to lower standards in order to fill shops with the type of thing simonhill mentions. His example might sound extreme but such are widely available in lower-income EU markets already; just visit an Eastern European hypermarket (Real, LeClerc, etc). All we need to do is create the market conditions that price out most of the higher quality stuff.

But we have that already, as I said, some people have a price point that they can afford and will stick to that simply because other things take precedence, though we know that some people are rubbish at that when you see people at food banks that are smokers, drive a car and have an expensive phone/phone contract (yes this happens and I know it happens regularly).

Some people realise that the lower/lowest end of the market doesn't fit the bill, some people don't, some people find that low end meets their needs even if for only a short period, we can't stop them from making that purchase, we can advise that it might not be the wisest choice for functionality and financial purposes, that's what we do on here quite often based on the collective wisdom even if we disagree with some of the options.

I recently questioned the teachers of a school going out to buy food for the local homeless organisation, I applauded that they were involving kids and making them aware of the issues, but I questioned if they had actually put any input into their purchase decisions. One example I gave was the pot noodles (formerly under the golden wonder brand) they were buying were more twice the price of the tesco own brand, eyt the tesco own brand had a higher nutrition value than the branded ones. I didn't get a response but these people who have limited information are more likely to buy x products that do not offer value over y product. we can try to give the best advice to make things better for them but we can't force them if there are other options for them to buy, it works at both the high cost and lower cost end of the market.
Bmblbzzz
Posts: 6259
Joined: 18 May 2012, 7:56pm
Location: From here to there.

Re: Safety Standards Post Brexit

Post by Bmblbzzz »

That's not quite my point though. With declining economic power of the country as a whole, the high end stuff becomes harder to get and more expensive, both in relative and absolute terms. At the same time, the base level slips closer to the absolute bottom.
mattsccm
Posts: 5101
Joined: 28 Nov 2009, 9:44pm

Re: Safety Standards Post Brexit

Post by mattsccm »

Of course we may benefit in some ways from reduced standards.
Many mass produced steel cycles are over engineered "jut in case" . There may be scope for reducing this .
Bmblbzzz
Posts: 6259
Joined: 18 May 2012, 7:56pm
Location: From here to there.

Re: Safety Standards Post Brexit

Post by Bmblbzzz »

I'm sure there's scope for reducing over-engineering. But nobody's going to start making good bikes that can't be sold in EU, US, Japan and similar mega markets. Unless you're thinking of bespoke stuff, which doesn't really have to think about those anyway.
carpetcleaner
Posts: 921
Joined: 14 Nov 2019, 1:25pm

Re: Safety Standards Post Brexit

Post by carpetcleaner »

I'm not too concerned. I cycled for most of my schooldays before we joined the EEC and I don't recall any safety issues related to my bikes. My father cycled for years before I started, and only stopped last year as he is just too frail to continue. He has never told me of dangerous bikes from the 30s through to the 60s, and that the matter was rectified once we submitted ourselves to supervision from Brussels. My grandfather's 1920s bike is still at my dad's house and I ride it from time to time. It is perfectly safe to ride, as is the 1960s 20 inch bike I got for my 5th birthday, which is also at my dad's house and often ridden by a young member of the family.

Most countries are not in the EU and I'm sure nearly all of them enforce appropriate legal standards about safe bicycle construction. Like those countries I'm sure the UK will have no problems in this matter, just as we didn't before 1st Jan 1973.
mattsccm
Posts: 5101
Joined: 28 Nov 2009, 9:44pm

Re: Safety Standards Post Brexit

Post by mattsccm »

To be honest the whole the whole thing is likely to be unimportant or even irrelevant.
Post Reply