Interpretation ID: 17179.wkm

Mr. Curtis M. Spencer
President
John Evans Manufacturing Company, Inc.
P. O. Box 669
Sumter, SC 29150

Dear Mr. Spencer:

Please pardon the delay in responding to your letter addressed to the attention of Walter Myers of my staff in which you asked whether the antilock brake system (ABS) requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (Standard) No. 121, Air brake systems, would apply to a "loader frame" that your company manufactures. The answer is no.

You stated in your letter that your company manufactures, among other things, "loader frames" that are used to transport log loading machinery to and from logging operation sites. You explained that a log loader is attached to the loader frame and used in forestry harvesting operations to load cut timber onto log trailers for transport to paper mills or wood yards. You also stated that loader frames are designed for incidental highway use between job sites, thus are classified as portable machinery and thereby exempt from the Federal excise tax.

Chapter 301 of Title 49, U.S. Code (hereinafter Safety Act) authorizes the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to establish Federal motor vehicle safety standards applicable to new motor vehicles and new items of motor vehicle equipment. The Safety Act defines "motor vehicle" as:

[A] vehicle driven or drawn by mechanical power and manufactured primarily for use on the public streets, roads, and highways, but does not include a vehicle operated only on a rail line.

49 U.S. Code 30102(6).

You enclosed with your letter pictures of loader frames, both with and without log loaders attached, and a copy of a letter with the addressee deleted that I wrote on May 14, 1997. In that letter I stated that a "knuckle boom loader trailer" does not constitute a motor vehicle within the statutory definition and therefore does not need to be equipped either with ABS or with underride protection. Similarly, it is our opinion that your loader frame is not a motor vehicle within the statutory definition. It is used as a platform on which to mount a log loader, which in turn is used primarily at off-road logging sites. The loader frame with attached log loader is occasionally transported over the public roadways from one job site to another at which the combined equipment typically spends extended periods of time. In that case, the on-highway use of the loader frame is merely incidental and is not the primary purpose for which the vehicle was manufactured. This is in contrast to instances in which vehicles such as dump trucks frequently use the public roads and highways going to and from off-road job sites, but stay there for only a limited time. Such vehicles are considered motor vehicles for purposes of the Safety Act, since their on-road use is more than "incidental."

In summary, it is our opinion that your loader frame is not a motor vehicle, and therefore not subject to the ABS requirements of Standard No. 121.

I hope this information is helpful. If you have any further questions or need additional information, feel free to contact Mr. Myers at this address or by telephone at (202) 366-2992, fax (202) 366-3820.

Sincerely,
John Womack
Acting Chief Counsel
Ref:121#VSA
d.5/6/98