History of Globalization

Road transport is regulated in three main ways. First by the layout of roads and traffic signs. Since international agreements (notably the 1931 Convention on the Unification of Road Signals) mostly do not regulate business to accomplish this, it is outside the scope of our study. That is to say, it was individuals who were mainly regulated by the famous roadsign in Baden of the German Reichstaat ('state ordered by law’): ‘It is permitted to travel on this road’ (Davies 1997: 438). Second, drivers are regulated through licensing and police enforcement of compliance with road rules. Since these drivers are mostly private citizens, we have also decided to exclude this domain of regulation from the scope of the study. The third domain is regulations concerning how motor vehicles should be manufactured, which is the subject of our analysis.

The history of the globalization of this regulation is recent. Motor vehicles only appeared on the world's roads in the 1890s. The first national regulation appeared in that decade. The only design requirement in the British Locomotives on Highways Act 1896 was that cars should carry lights at night and have a ‘bell or other instrument capable of giving audible and sufficient warning' (Plowden 1971: 22). Sixteen European states concluded the first Convention on Road Traffic in 1909. It contained motor vehicle design provisions to exclude risks of explosion, limit nuisance from noise and vapours, mandate two separate braking systems, and regulate lighting and steering. The 1926 International Convention Relating to Road Traffic and the 1926 International Convention Relating to Motor Traffic established more detailed rules covering exhaust silencers, rear-view mirrors, pneumatic tyres, lights and licence plates. The Convention on Road Traffic concluded in 1949 was the framework for postwar globalization of vehicle manufacturing standards. The Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) set up a Working Party on the Construction of Vehicles (Working Party 29) in 1953 and agreed upon its first regulation in 1958. This became the pre-eminent global forum for motor vehicle standards. Yet the first seventy years of the motor vehicle's existence saw only limited globalization of its regulation, and quite limited national regulation as well.