Standards vs Legislation
A PAS (Public Advisory Specification) is a document which can precede the creation of a British Standard and provides a means to collate design standards and recognise good practice for emerging products which would benefit from a degree of conformity.
A Public Advisory Specification, as its name suggests, is just that – advisory. A product may meet the proposed standard of a PAS or BS, which confirms it is following identified good practice and design but it cannot comply with it.
Legislation (a law written into statute) obliges compliance, standards are used to encourage good design and good practice; they do not impose legal responsibilities.
In short a product meets a standard or complies with legislation.
AirDeck and PAS 59 – 14
AirDeck was not taken into account in the creation of PAS 59 – 14 but this does not prevent it from meeting the standards recommended by it.
‘This specification(PAS 59 – 14) is not intended to restrict new developments in design and materials and manufacturers of collective fall arrest soft landing systems may seek innovative provision of such systems provided their performance is in accordance with the requirements of this PAS’
AirDeck falls into this bracket and has been tested according to the recommendations of PAS 59 – 14 and the certificate registering that it does meet the recommendations is available here.
In fact thorough testing revealed that it not only met but far exceeded the recommendations of PAS 59 – 14 in that the force of impact was far less than the 14g prescribed reducing considerably the risk of injury that might otherwise be expected.