The growing attention being paid by car manufacturers and the general public to hydrogen as a middle and longterm energy carrier for automotive purpose is giving rise to lively discussions on the advantages and disadvan-tages of this technology ? also with respect to safety. In this connection the focus is increasingly, and justifiablyso, on the possibilities offered by a probabilistic approach to loads and component characteristics: a lower weightobliged with a higher safety level, basics for an open minded risk communication, the possibility of a providentrisk management, the conservation of resources and a better and not misleading understanding of deterministicresults. But in the case of adequate measures of standards or regulations completion there is a high potential ofadditional degrees of freedom for the designers obliged with a further increasing safety level. For this purpose what follows deals briefly with the terminological basis and the aspects of acceptance control,conservation of resources, misinterpretation of deterministic results and the application of regulations/standards.This leads into the initial steps of standards improvement which can be taken with relatively simple means in thedirection of comprehensively risk-oriented protection goal specifications. By this it?s not focused on to provideto much technical details. It?s focused on the context of different views on probabilistic risk assessment. As mainresult some aspects of the motivation and necessity for the currently running pre-normative research studieswithin the 6th frame-work program of the EU will be shown.