Specialised regulation
ADR — lighting rules for dangerous-goods transport.
ADR is the European agreement governing the international carriage of dangerous goods by road. Annex B, Part 9 contains the electrical-installation rules that a lamp on an ADR-rated vehicle must meet. It is stricter than ordinary road-vehicle standards — a lamp fitted to a tanker carrying flammable liquid has to survive electrical and mechanical conditions an ordinary delivery truck never sees.
Laatst bijgewerkt 24 april 2026
What ADR adds on top of ECE
An ordinary road-legal lamp needs ECE R7 (or R148) for certification, R10 for EMC and R48 for installation. An ADR-compliant installation needs all of that, plus:
- Electrical clearance between conductors: minimum 3 mm for lamps fitted to the tank area - Cable rating: must withstand 150°C ambient temperature for one hour - Fuse protection: every auxiliary circuit on an ADR vehicle must be fused; no direct battery connections - Main battery disconnect: must be operable from outside the cab, and switching it must cut power to all lamps except the hazard indicators - Ingress protection: lamps mounted in the lower half of a tanker need IP69K as a minimum
For a lighting supplier, the practical impact is that an "ADR-suitable" lamp is effectively IP69K + R10 with its internal wiring rated for higher temperatures.
Tunnel lighting — the EX ATEX corner case
Tank trucks carrying Class 3 (flammable liquid) or Class 2 (compressed gas) into a road tunnel face an extra layer of rules. If the vehicle is expected to enter explosive-atmosphere zones during loading or unloading (not the road journey itself), all electrical equipment in that zone must be ATEX-certified.
ATEX is a EU directive, not an ECE regulation, but it often gets rolled into ADR discussions. The relevant marking is "II 3 G Ex ec IIB T4" — the numbers and letters define zone class, gas group and maximum surface temperature.
Most road-vehicle lighting is not ATEX-rated. For the handful of tanker applications that need it, we can source purpose-built lamps on request.
If a customer says 'ATEX-rated' and means 'fitted to an ADR vehicle', the two things are not the same. Ask what the fleet actually carries before you quote.
Colour coding and mandatory lamps
ADR vehicles carry the same lamp set as ordinary trucks, plus:
- Orange flashing hazard-warning beacon — mandatory for explosives carriers (Class 1) during unloading - Orange reflective plates front and rear — permanent, not a lamp but often supplied alongside - Supplementary side-marker lamps at 600 mm centres on tank vehicles longer than 6 m
The hazard beacon must be ECE R65 Class 1 approved, amber, and wired into a dedicated circuit with its own fuse.
Maintenance and inspection
An ADR vehicle is inspected annually (every three years for some tractor units) by an accredited body. The electrical test includes:
- Insulation-resistance measurement on all lamp circuits - Verification of the outside battery disconnect - Visual check that every lamp bears a current ECE mark - Photometric spot-check on the hazard beacon
A lamp replaced between inspections must match or exceed the original's certification marks. An installer who fits a non-R65 beacon "just for now" commits the vehicle owner to a re-inspection and potential loss of ADR authorisation.