Exactly. Hardly anyone thinks about standards themselves. But we need them to ensure that products can be developed, manufactured and operated safely. That is a major achievement. If we stay with electric mobility: even though fast-charging stations operate with very high voltages and currents, most people give this no thought whatsoever. That shows just how strong trust has become.
Where does this trust come from?
It is the result of decades of standardization work. A hundred years ago, the situation was very different. At that time, many people in Germany died every year in electrical accidents caused by faulty devices or installations. Today, fatal electrical accidents outside the workplace are extremely rare. This trust was not simply taken for granted – it has been built over many decades.
Can this improvement in safety also be demonstrated statistically?
If you look at long-term trends, yes. It is difficult to attribute improvements to any single standard. But technological developments such as the introduction of residual-current devices in the 1970s have demonstrably helped to significantly reduce the number of serious electrical accidents.
So most people only notice your work when it fails?
That is indeed an interesting point. We are currently seeing, for example, an increase in safety defects involving cheap imported products. Some products carry test marks or CE markings even though they do not actually meet the requirements. In some cases, plugs can become stuck in sockets, putting users at risk of electric shock when they try to remove them. Such incidents show how important it is that safety requirements are actually complied with.
So the problem does not lie with the standards themselves?
No. In such cases, the issue is generally not that the standards are inadequate. The problem is rather that they are not complied with or that market surveillance is insufficient. Good standards create safety – but they must also be consistently implemented.
Standardization takes time. Couldn’t we also follow a “trial and error” approach and make improvements only after an accident has occurred?
Of course, standards are continuously developed further when new findings emerge or risks change. But the fundamental goal of standardization is different: it is intended to prevent problems wherever possible before they arise. That is why efforts are made as early as the product development stage to take all conceivable sources of error and hazards into account. This includes basic standards, for example on the effects of electric current on the human body, which then form the basis for standards governing individual products – from hair dryers to electric shavers. This preventive approach may be more time-consuming than a “trial and error” approach. But ultimately, it creates exactly what matters most: trust. When people buy an electrical product today, they naturally assume that it is safe. That trust exists precisely because potential risks are identified and eliminated as far as possible before a product reaches the market.
