UP FRONT 01
EDITOR’S LETTER
How will we remember the year 2020 when it’s all over?
of WP15, and the summer sessions of the UN TDG and
We may remember the clean air and quiet roads, and we
GHS experts have all been cancelled.
may remember the struggles and stresses involved in getting enough food and drink. But apart from that, will we remember it at all? My diary,
In all cases, these meetings were the last opportunity for the regulators to agree major changes to their respective rulebooks and, at least for RID and ADR,
for instance, is blank from early March onwards – blank,
the 2021 texts will include only those changes that
that is, apart from all the engagements and trips that had
had already been adopted in the latter part of 2019 –
been planned only to be cancelled or postponed, and are now
although there may be some amendments, corrections
still in the pages of the diary, crossed out. Postponed till when?
and consequential amendments.
It’s hard to tell – pretty much everything this side of October
Likewise, the UN TDG Sub-committee will now miss
is now not happening and some events that have been put
the third of its four sessions in the current biennium.
back once have since been postponed even further.
Traditionally this has been the one session where all the
This has affected everyone in the industry – although as
hard work and disagreements are sorted out and set down
we see in the pages of this issue of HCB, many companies
as the amendments that will appear in the next issue
are able to carry on and, with some tweaks to the way they
of the UN Model Regulations, for publication next year.
are doing things, are still making money.
The final session is generally left for late changes and
Also affected, of course, have been the regulators. They too
tidying up. This will not happen this time around.
have been unable to travel – and probably unwilling, too. After
What all this does mean is that the next editions of
all, who wants to share a stuffy meeting room in Geneva with
the regulations will include fewer changes than they
100 or so other experts who have flown in from all points of
might have done. I dare say there will be many in industry
the compass? Let’s not forget either that a fair number of
who see this as a good thing, and I have some sympathy
these experts are not in the first flush of youth – that’s how
with that position.
they get to be experts – and are among those most at risk from the virus.
On the other hand, it also means that there may be some safety-critical changes that are not adopted promptly,
So if the experts cannot get to the meeting rooms at the
although the modal authorities may be able to bring those
UN building, how do they make regulations? Well, the short
forward into the 2023 revisions rather than wait to 2025.
answer is: they can’t. So far this year the spring Joint Meeting of the RID/ADR/ADN experts, the spring sessions of the RID Committee of Experts and its standing working group and
And in any case, you will still have to buy copies of the new regulations next year. Peter Mackay
WWW.HCBLIVE.COM
