6. Mr Carroll presented an update of the activities done by TRL on behalf of the European Commission (document TF-BTA-03-06/Rev.1 which is an update of the presentation provided in advance). He explained that in EEVC there had been some discussion in Working Group 10 on the use of a 45° plane or a 60° plane in late 1990. However, it cannot be discovered why finally a change to 60° had been decided but obviously the decision was related to already existing legislation in Europe (UNECE Regulation 42) as well as the US (part 581). Mr Carroll finally pointed out that legislation is used in a different context in the bumper requirements compared to the pedestrian requirements.

7. Also, Mr Carroll presented some information from Euro NCAP tests were vehicles performed different at positions outside the bumper corners. Also, some geometric measurements were taken for the top-selling vehicles in the UK. Mr Carroll pointed out that the differences between the test areas are clearly seen between earlier and current generations of the same car.

8. Finally, Mr Carroll outlined that TRL will conduct some tests with both, the EEVC LFI as well as the FlexPLI to discover differences in the protection level between earlier and current vehicles front ends. These activities are planned to be done as the next steps.

9. Mr Roth wondered whether TRL could also consider the influence of the front ends’ design, specifically whether this has an influence on the protection level. Mr Carroll promised to consider this if possible.

10. Regarding the timing of the TRL activities, Mr Kinsky reminded that the timing could become an issue especially when considering the tough schedule of the Informal Group that oversees the activities of this Task Force. The chair pointed out that the timing should be considered by TRL and therefore should not create issues.

11. Mr Bilkhu wondered whether, seeing accident figures, the number of accidents could be decreased with the amendment of the test procedure. Mr Carroll promised that they will conduct analyses of the statistics under consideration of this aspect. Dr. Konosu added that some figures on this from Japan are available that will be shown later during the meeting.

12. Seeing the discussion to change the bumper corners, Mr Roth pointed out that the physical abilities of the impactors, especially the influence of rotation during the tests, need to be considered. He promised to show some details on this later during the meeting.

13. The discussion came back to Mr Bilkhu’s question on accidentology: Will the number of accidents and specifically of injuries be decreased? This should be the starting point of the investigation. Mr Broertjes explained that the Commission sees a need for the amendment of the bumper test area as it is obvious that a number of manufacturers are benefiting from engineering solutions to decrease the testable area. The accident data will be checked but it needs to be noted in advance that an absence of detailed data does not prove that there are no injuries in this area of the vehicle front. According to the Commission’s opinion the absence of detailed data may just lead to the assumption that accidents/injuries are equally distributed over the vehicle width.

14. Mr Nguyen added that from the perspective of the US a benefit analysis needs to also contain the effects of an impact outside of the test area. For NHTSA, it will not be acceptable to amend the bumper corners definition without detailed justification.

15. Finally, Mr Roth added that the analysis should also consider the changes of the front end designs relating to CO2 emissions and fuel consumption.