Interesting perspectives given. I’m rather cynical myself of standards having sat on a few of the committees who set them in different industries, from automotive, electrical parameter instrumentation to medical. The committees supposedly have representatives from all stakeholders (interested parties) but are in reality dominated IMO by the largest manufacturers in that sector. The aim has always been IMO of the company’s to develop a standard that has been so difficult, draconian and expensive to implement that it reduces / eliminates competition. Nothing what’s so ever to do with protecting the public, that was always what the measures were dressed up to be. Lipstick and pig come to mind.
Now once these usually over the top standards get made into law, the real problems begin. There is nobody policing them. So, you have a situation where anybody can claim to be making products to a standard and nobody knows if they are or arn’t. A good example is the recent wonderful emission scandal of VW. A very highly respected German manufacturer of vehicles who you would have assumed was beyond reproach of flaunting, circumnavigating and fraud about compliance. Well, it would appear not.
The usual joke is that anything marked CE marked coming from China is not CE marked which by the way a company can award itself, it standards for Chinese Export. There as there is nobody to regulate, check or verify the millions of products meet the standards they claim to have been made to. The only time anything is checked is when there is a serious accident. Even then, most investigators don’t have a clue about the standards or how they are interpreted. At one company, who I was associated with, the largest manufacturer of the type of product in the UK, we were the experts the police called upon in serious automotive accidents that involved the type of products we made.
Look at FENSA, you have these days to be FENSA registered and ‘approved’ to fit a window. Well. Let’s look at the detail. How do I become FENSA approved? How long does it take to master the skills required / exams I have to sit? The answer might surprise you.....five minutes in the FENSA web site a few pounds and you get immediate FENSA certification. No exams, no nothing. Golly, I’m so glad and feel so well reassured that the window fitter is FENSA approved!
So, I have examples as long as my arm, and indeed just about everything I’ve ever looked into has exactly the same issues. Let’s as a last example take the law of the land, which has been cited. The pretext in the Uk is that not knowing the requirements of the law is no defence in the Uk. Well, how many of us know the law? I mean ever law that’s still on the statute books that could or is likely to touch us.....hands up......anyone.....nobody? Nope, none of us. It’s so complicated, open to interpretation, and it’s actual nature defined and redefined ever court case that we have specialists who make it their business to study, understand and interpret it for us.....lawyers! I can absolutely guarantee that every single one of us has broken the law multiple times and been completely unaware we have done it. There will also be numerous times we have broken the law deliberately, knowing, and with motive.......parking, speeding, jay walking are all good examples. I think it’s Wales that has / had the zero tolerance approach to all speeding offences, they certainly seem to have more than their fair share of speed cameras.....but have the most deaths on the roads. Possibly due to everyone focused on trying to slow down when ever they see a speed camera than actual focusing on driving.....who knows, but it’s reassuring that they have a zero tolerance to speeding.
