ADR Vehicle Categories

Let’s have a look at some of the vehicle categories defined in the ADR’s here. This is critical to understand when modifying a vehicle as some of the ADR’s may not apply to your vehicle. So ignoring trucks, bikes and buses, from this document, we get the following categories:

here

* Category MA – Passenger Car

* Category MB – Forward Control Passenger Vehicle with no more than 9 seats

* Category MC – Offroad passenger vehicle

* Category NA – Light Goods Vehicles with a GVM not exceeding 3.5 tonnes

Now I know this is pretty boring stuff, but some of these categories are broken up into sub-categories based on their GVM. These do not apply to Category MA, but the others have two sub-categories based on if the GVM is over 2.7 tonnes. The Subcategories are therefore MB1, MB2, MC1, MC2, NA1 and NA2.

So my Hilux has a GVM of 2780 kg on it’s compliance plate and therefore it is a category NA2 vehicle. Category NA2 vehicles do not have to comply with ADR 69 (Frontal Full Frontal Impact Occupant Protection) or ADR 73 (Offset Frontal Impact Occupant Protection).

I will leave it for you to check ADR requirements for your vehicle category (you can find them here), but let’s now look at why this might be of interest. Let’s say I want to build a bulbar. I follow the weblinks on this forum to the light vehicle modifications guidelines for Queensland and I find:

“Vehicles fitted with an airbag or manufactured to comply with ADR 69 - Full Frontal Impact Occupant Protection or both ADR 69 and ADR 73 – Offset Frontal Impact Protection, can only be fitted with a bull bar which:

* has been certified by the vehicle manufacturer as suitable for that vehicle or

* has been demonstrated by the bull bar manufacturer to not adversely affect compliance with the ADRs or interfere with the critical airbag timing mechanism, as the case may be.

Bull bars that comply with AS 4876.1-2002 provide a higher level of pedestrian protection.”