Abstract
The specification of the headlamp meeting beam has been a matter of disagreement between lighting engineers, in Europe on the one hand, and in the United Kingdom and the United States on the other, for many years.
Although the setting up of a Joint Working Party to study the question by the International Standards Organisation (I.S.O.) and International Commission on Illumination (C.I.E.) has not resolved these differences, the report(I) submitted by the Working Party to the C.I.E. in Zurich in 1955, and to the I.S.O. in London in 1956, records, for the first time, an attempt by each side to understand the ideas and problems of the other, and registers complete unanimity on the overwhelming importance of the correct use and maintenance of car headlamps.
The purpose of this paper is to describe the background against which these tests were carried out, and the nature of the results. The Working Party's recommendations are discussed and the adoption of an asymmetric beam, hitherto the distinguishing characteristic of Anglo-American practice, as the new unified European beam is noted.
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