OECD AGR/CA/T(2004)21 SECOND DRAFT PROPOSAL FOR OPTIONAL SEAT BELT ANCHORAGE TESTS IN THE OECD CODES FOR PROTECTIVE STRUCTURES

At the 2003 Annual Meeting an Italian proposal was submitted to include an optional test of seat belt anchorages in the OECD Codes for protective structures. The proposal came from this consideration: occupant restraints can be seen as part of a ROPS system. The discussion at the 12th Test Engineers Conference in Madrid concerning the advisability of the OECD introducing a procedure in the Codes for testing seat belt anchorages highlighted the need to deal with this problem and the Bologna Testing Station was asked to collect all comments from the OECD Testing Stations and present a final proposal on this subject. The main goal in our proposal is to include the new anchorage procedure, as an optional, in OECD Codes 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8 and to ask the EU to automatically recognize this test procedure, as for the Protective Structure Codes. The test procedure will be clearly stated in the OECD Codes and if tractor manufactures ask for the test, the results will be presented as an annex to the test report on the protective structure.