ID: 2835yy

Thomas R. Mounteer, Esq.
Keller & Heckman
1150 17th Street, N.W.
Suite 1000
Washington, D. C. 20037

Dear Mr. Mounteer:

This responds to your letter on behalf of your client, Heritage Motors, that asked whether Heritage, given the nature of its manufacturing process, must assign its own Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs). I apologize for the delay in this response. As discussed below, since Heritage considers the vehicles it manufactures to be: (l) "new" vehicles and (2) manufactured in one stage, it must assign its own VINs to the cars. I note that this letter addresses the vehicles Heritage assembles and not the "kits" which Heritage also sells.

According to your letter, Heritage Motors makes replica Mercedes 500K passenger cars, using 1970-1981 Chevrolet Camaros as donor cars. An information brochure accompanying your letter describes the parts that are removed from the Camaros and then reused in the Mercedes replica. Since Heritage uses a new body, engine, transmission, and many other new or remanufactured parts, you have considered the completed vehicle to be a "new" motor vehicle. Moreover, Heritage manufactures the vehicles in one stage.

Under section S4.l of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. ll5, Vehicle Identification Number--Basic Requirements, each vehicle manufactured in one stage must have a VIN that is assigned by the manufacturer. Heritage must therefore assign its own VIN numbers to the cars it manufactures.

I hope this information is helpful. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact Ms. Dorothy Nakama of my staff at this address or by telephone at (202) 366-2992.

Sincerely,

Paul Jackson Rice Chief Counsel ref:115 d:2/l/9l

ID: 2836o

Robert L. Bernard
Attorney at Law
12342 Wrenthrope Drive
Houston, TX 77031

Dear Mr. Bernard:

This letter responds to your inquiry of August 21, 1987, where you asked for this agency's opinion on whether Federal motor vehicle safety standard 115 (49 CFR 571.115) requires a manufacturer's chrome script name on the trunk of vehicles it manufactures. It does not.

Standard 115, Vehicle Identification Number- Basic Requirements, directs a vehicle manufacturer to place a discrete vehicle identification number (VIN) on each vehicle it manufactures. Under paragraph S4.5, the VIN for any motor vehicle must appear indelibly on a part of the vehicle other than the glazing, that is not designed to be removed except for repair. Paragraph S4.6 states that the VIN for passenger cars must appear inside the passenger compartment. Title 49 CFR Part 565, VIN-Content Requirements, states that among other things, the VIN's first three characters must identify the vehicle manufacturer. However, neither Standard 115 nor Part 565 require a manufacturer's name plate to appear on the vehicle.

I hope you find this information helpful.

Sincerely,

Erika Z. Jones Chief Counsel

ref:115#115 d:3/7/88

ID: 2836yy

Mr. Jeffrey S. Malinowski
Small Business Center
407 Avalon
Marine City, MI 48039

Dear Mr. Malinowski:

This responds to your letter on behalf of Mr. Leo McCallum, asking whether any Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard applies to his invention, a tie rod "safety bracket." You stated that the product would typically be installed by a vehicle owner to reduce tie rod end wear. As explained below, while no Federal safety standard directly applies to your client's product, he may nevertheless have certain responsibilities under this agency's regulations.

As way of background information, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, as amended (the "Safety Act") authorizes the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to issue safety standards applicable to motor vehicles and items of motor vehicle equipment. The Safety Act also requires that these safety standards establish minimum levels of performance for vehicles or equipment. Once the necessary performance level has been established, vehicle or equipment manufacturers are free to choose any means they wish to achieve the required level of performance. In other words, the safety standards do not require the use of any particular manufacturer's product or particular materials; the standards permit the use of any manufacturer's product that achieves the necessary performance level. Section 114 of the Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 1403) requires manufacturers to certify that each of its vehicles or items of motor vehicle equipment complies with all applicable safety standards. NHTSA does not approve, endorse, or certify any motor vehicle or item of motor vehicle equipment.

NHTSA has no safety standard directly about tie rods or safety brackets used with tie rods.

As for installation of your client's device on vehicles in the aftermarket, such installations may be limited by section 108(a)(2)(A) of the Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 1397(a)(2)(A)). That section prohibits any manufacturer, distributor, dealer, or motor vehicle repair business from knowingly rendering inoperative any device or element of design installed on or in a motor vehicle in compliance with an applicable safety standard. If installation of your client's product resulted in a vehicle no longer complying with a safety standard, a manufacturer, distributor, dealer, or repair business that installed the product would have rendered inoperative a device or element of design installed on the vehicle in compliance with a standard. To avoid a "rendering operative" violation, your client should examine his product to determine if installing his product would result in the vehicle no longer complying with a standard's requirements.

Section 109 of the Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 1398) specifies a civil penalty of up to $1,000 for each violation of the "render inoperative" provision.

Please note that the Safety Act does not establish any limitations on an individual vehicle owner's ability to alter his or her own vehicle. Under Federal law, individual owners can install any device they want on their own vehicles, regardless of whether that device renders inoperative the vehicle's compliance with a safety standard.

Other statutory provisions in the Safety Act could affect your client's product. Manufacturers of motor vehicle equipment such as the "tire rod safety bracket" are subject to the requirements in sections 151-159 of the Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 1411-1419) on the recall and remedy of products with defects related to motor vehicle safety. The Safety Act specifies that if either the manufacturer or this agency determines that a safety-related defect exists in your client's product, your client as the manufacturer must notify purchasers of the safety-related defect and must either:

(1) repair the part so that the defect is removed; or

(2) replace the part with an identical or reasonably equivalent part which does not have a defect.

Whichever of these options is chosen, the manufacturer must bear the full expense and cannot charge the owner for the remedy if the equipment was purchased less than eight years before the notification campaign.

I hope this information is helpful. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact Marvin Shaw of my staff at this address or by telephone at (202) 366-2992.

Sincerely,

Paul Jackson Rice Chief Counsel Enclosures d:2/l/9l

ID: 2837o

Mr. Robert W. Hocken
General Manager
Phoenix Transit System
P.O. Box 4275
Phoenix, AZ 85030

Dear Mr. Hocken:

This is in reply to your letter of December l6, l987 to Mr. Vinson of this office requesting an interpretation of Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. l08. You have received a "Service Information Safety Related letter" from Flxible Corporation stating that deceleration warning lights installed on your buses do not comply with Standard No. l08. You have also asked how you may file for "Special Exception" if your buses are not in compliance.

This will confirm that Flxible Corporation, pursuant to applicable Federal regulations, has determined that certain buses produced by it, including the 67 units furnished Phoenix, do not comply with Standard No. l08, and has initiated a notification and remedy campaign (Campaign 87V-089). The basis of this determination was the manufacturer's conclusion that flashing amber deceleration warning lamps could create confusion when activated simultaneously with the red steady burning stop lamps. The company has advised you of the corrective action to be taken, that is, to remove the deceleration flasher. Although the agency encourages owners of campaigned vehicles to remedy noncompliances, the decision whether to do so rests with the vehicle owner. There is no Federal requirement that an owner correct a noncompliance that exists in his vehicle, and no penalty for his failure to do so. Thus, no "Special Exception" is either needed or available for an owner who wishes to continue operating a vehicle in a noncompliant state.

We are interested in your comment that you experienced a 44 percent reduction in accidents in l985, the first full year that the system was installed on all your buses, compared with l984. This report compares favorably with the accident reduction experienced in our test fleets of passenger cars equipped with center highmounted stop lamps, which was the basis for eventual adoption of that requirement. The agency is engaged in research pertaining to the conspicuity of large vehicles, and would find it helpful to have a copy of the data upon which you based your comment. It should be sent to Michael Finkelstein, Associate Administrator for Research and Development, NHTSA, 400 Seventh Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20590. We appreciate your interest in safety.

Sincerely,

Erika Z. Jones Chief Counsel

ref:l08#VSA d:3/7/88

ID: 2837yy

Ms. Susan J. Otjen
Spill Response Project
Oregon State Fire Marshal's Office
3000 Market Street Plaza
Suite 534
Salem, Oregon 93710-0198

Dear Ms. Otjen:

This responds to your request for an opinion whether Oregon's specifications for Hazardous Material Emergency Response Vehicles are consistent with the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. Based on the information provided in your letter and telephone conversations with Steve Kratzke of this office, there is no inconsistency betweens Oregon's specifications and the Federal safety standards.

The Emergency Response Vehicles in question have a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) of more than 10,000 pounds. Oregon's specifications call for the vehicle to include a manual safety belt at each seating position. One of the parties bidding on the contract for these vehicles suggested that these specifications were inadequate to comply with the requirements of the Federal safety standards, because, according to the bidder, the Federal standards require a crash test to measure the occupant protection afforded in these vehicles. The bidder's assertion is inaccurate.

The occupant protection requirements applicable to these Emergency Response Vehicles are set forth in S4.3.2 of Standard No. 208, Occupant Crash Protection (49 CFR 571.208). That section requires that trucks and multipurpose passenger vehicles with a GVWR in excess of 10,000 pounds provide occupant protection at every designated seating position, but gives manufacturers two alternative means of providing the necessary protection.

The first option for manufacturers of these vehicles, as set forth in S4.3.2.1, is to provide automatic crash protection (e.g., air bags or automatic safety belts) for occupants. If this option were chosen, the vehicle would be subject to crash testing by NHTSA during its compliance evaluations. To date, no manufacturer of heavy vehicles has ever chosen this option. Instead, they have chosen the second option.

The second option, as set forth in S4.3.2.2, is to provide manual safety belts at every designated seating position. No vehicle crash testing is conducted under this option. Instead, compliance evaluations are based on a series of static tests of the safety belt assembly and the anchorage for that assembly. Accordingly, there is nothing in the Oregon specifications for these Emergency Response Vehicles that conflicts with the requirements of the Federal motor vehicle safety standards.

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

Sincerely,

Paul Jackson Rice Chief Counsel

ref:208 d:2/5/9l

ID: 2838o

Rusty Mitchell
A-Z Bus Sales, Inc.
P.O. Box 9389
5555 W. Mission Blvd.
Ontario, CA 91762

Dear Mr. Mitchell:

This is a response to your letter of November 11, 1987, in which you asked for information on the "application of seat belts in school buses." I am pleased to have this opportunity to explain our regulations to you.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is responsible for developing safety standards applicable to all new motor vehicles, including school buses. In 1977, we issued a set of motor vehicle safety standards regulating various aspects of school bus performance. Among those standards is Standard 222, School Bus Passenger Seating and Crash Protection. Standard 222 requires large school buses (those with a gross vehicle weight rating over 10,000 pounds) to afford passenger crash protection by means of "compartmentalization."

Compartmentalization requires large school buses to incorporate certain protective elements into the vehicles' interior construction, thereby reducing the risk of injury to school bus passengers without the need for safety belts. These elements include high seats with heavily padded backs and improved seat spacing and performance. Our regulations require a safety belt for the school bus driver because the driver's position is not compartmentalized. Further, because small school buses (10,000 pounds or less GVWR) experience greater force levels in a crash, Standard 222 requires the added protection of safety belts at each passenger position in a small school bus.

School buses continue to have one of the lowest fatality rates for any class of motor vehicle. Large school buses are among the safest motor vehicles because of their size and weight (which generally reduce an occupant's exposure to injury-threatening crash forces), the drivers' training and experience, and the extra care other motorists usually take when they are near a school bus. For these reasons, our regulations do not require safety belts for passengers in large school buses.

I enclose a copy of a June 1985 NHTSA publication titled "Safety Belts in School Buses," which discusses many of the issues relative to this subject.

You also asked whether there is an order form listing available data for safety belts in school buses. This agency does not publish "order forms" for any data. For further information on this subject, you may wish to contact individual school bus manufacturers to ask for data about safety belts in their buses.

I hope you find this information helpful.

Sincerely,

Erika Z. Jones Chief Counsel

Enclosure ref:222 d:3/l0/88

ID: 2838yy

Mr. Walter E. Gundaker
Acting Director
Center for Devices and Radiological Health
Food and Drug Administration
12720 Twinbrook Parkway
Rockville, MD 20857

Dear Mr. Gundaker:

This responds to your December 26, 1990 letter concerning mechanical hand and foot driving controls. These controls are intended to enable persons who have limited use of their arms or legs to drive a motor vehicle. In your letter you stated that, because these controls raise questions regarding motor vehicle safety, your agency would like to revoke their present classification as a class II medical device. However, before you do this, you would "need assurances that these driving controls for handicapped persons do fall in the jurisdiction of NHTSA and that significant complaints of malfunction would be investigated by NHTSA." The following is a summary of our statutory authority in this area.

Section 103 of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (the Safety Act; 15 U.S.C. 1392) authorizes NHTSA to issue Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards that set performance requirements for new motor vehicles and items of motor vehicle equipment. The driving controls that are the subject of your letter would be considered items of motor vehicle equipment, within the meaning of the Safety Act. However, this agency has not issued any standards setting forth performance requirements for controls for disabled drivers. Obviously, these controls could not be determined to be in noncompliance with a safety standard if there is no applicable safety standard.

Another possible source of authority for NHTSA would be 108(a)(2)(A) of the Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 1397(a)(2)(A)), which specifies that, "no manufacturer, distributor, dealer, or motor vehicle repair business shall knowingly render inoperative, in whole or part, any device or element of design installed on or in a motor vehicle or item of motor vehicle equipment in compliance with an applicable Federal motor vehicle safety standard." This statutory prohibition would be violated if a manufacturer, distributor, dealer, or repair business installed a mechanical hand or foot driving control so as to "render inoperative" any of the elements of design installed in the original vehicle in compliance with one of our safety standards. However, when NHTSA has been asked about this in the past, the agency has generally stated that it would not institute enforcement proceedings under section 108(a)(2)(A) of the Safety Act against dealers or repair shops when a particular vehicle must be modified to accommodate the needs of a particular disability.

Finally, the agency has authority to investigate allegations that items of motor vehicle equipment, such as these controls, contain defects related to motor vehicle safety, and to order the equipment manufacturer to notify owners and to remedy without charge any items of equipment determined to contain a defect related to motor vehicle safety, as provided in sections 151-160 of the Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 1411-1420). If there were indications that these controls contained a defect related to motor vehicle safety, the agency would investigate and take appropriate actions. Of course, as with any investigation of alleged safety-related defects, the outcome would depend on the facts of the specific investigation.

I hope you find this information helpful. If you have further questions or need some additional information in this area, please contact Mary Versailles of my staff at this address or by telephone at (202) 366-2992.

Sincerely,

Paul Jackson Rice Chief Counsel

/ref:VSA d:2/l9/9l

ID: 2839o

Karl-Heinz Faber
Vice President
Product Compliance and Service
Mercedes-Benz of North America, Inc.
P.O. Box 350
Montvale, NJ 07645

Dear Mr. Faber:

Thank you for your letter concerning the requirements of Standard No. 210, Seat Belt Assembly Anchorages. In particular, you asked for an interpretation of the provisions of S4.3 of the standard. I regret the delay in answering your questions.

S4.3 of Standard No. 210 provides, in part, that "Anchorages for automatic and for dynamically tested seat belt assemblies that meet the frontal crash protection requirements of S5.1 of Standard No. 208 (49 CFR Part 571.208) are exempt from the location requirements of this section." (Emphasis added.) You first asked the agency to confirm that anchorages to be used with automatic and dynamically tested safety belts that meet the requirements of S5.1 of Standard No. 208 are exempt from all of the anchorage location requirements of S4.3. You are correct that S4.3 of Standard No. 210 provides that such anchorages are exempt from all the location requirements.

The amendment to exempt anchorages of dynamically tested seat belt assemblies from the anchorage location requirements of Standard No. 210 became effective on May 5, 1986, well in advance of the September 1, 1989 effective date for dynamic testing of manual belts. This effective date indicates that the agency did not intend to limit the exemption from the anchorage location requirements to manual safety belts that were required to be dynamically tested. Additionally, the exemption applies to dynamically tested seat belt assemblies that "meet" the frontal crash protection requirements of Standard No. 208, rather than to vehicles "subject to" the frontal crash protection requirements of that Standard. This language indicates that NHTSA intended to allow manufacturers to take advantage of the exemption from the anchorage location requirements for dynamically tested safety belts before the dynamic testing requirements were applicable to such belts. Accordingly, if a vehicle is equipped with a manual safety belt at either or both front outboard seating positions, and the anchorage or anchorages for those belts do not comply with the anchorage location requirements set forth in S4.3 of Standard No. 210, the manufacturer must certify that the belts attached at any such anchorage points comply with S5.1 of Standard No. 208.

In your second question, you asked the following:

We also understand that such dynamic testing may be combined with other compliance testing, and the vehicle or vehicles used may be equipped 'as delivered' for sale to a consumer. Accordingly, the vehicle structure with built-in energy management features, seats with designed-in anti-submarining construction, energy absorbing instrument panel, collapsible steering column, driver and/or passenger airbag(s), anti-lacerative windshield glass, emergency tensioning retractors, etc. may be installed and functional, where applicable, during the compliance crash test.

During its compliance testing, NHTSA combines a test of the occupant crash protection capabilities of automatic or manual safety belts with testing done to determine compliance with other standards. The agency tests vehicles to the frontal barrier crash requirements of Standard Nos. 208, 212, 219, and 301 in a single barrier impact. In conducting these compliance tests, NHTSA tests vehicles in their "as delivered" form with all items of standard equipment present in the vehicle. Thus, if a vehicle has devices, such as an air bag system or pre-tensioning devices for the belts, installed in the vehicle as items of standard equipment, NHTSA's compliance testing is conducted with those items in place and fully functioning. If our compliance testing shows that a vehicle tested with a manual safety belt at one or both front outboard seating positions complies with the occupant crash protection requirements of S5.1 of Standard No. 208, then the anchorages for the belt or belts would not be subject to the anchorage location requirements of S4.3 of Standard No. 210.

If you have any further questions, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Erika Z. Jones Chief Counsel

ref:208#210 d:3/l4/88

ID: 2839yy

The Honorable John D. Dingell
Chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight
and Investigations
Committee on Energy and Commerce
House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Mr. Chairman:

Your letter of July 10, 1990 about the applicability of NHTSA's safety standards to replacement parts was misplaced. This is indeed unfortunate, embarrassing, and I can assure you extraordinary. You asked me to review an April 9, 1990 interpretation letter from our Office of Chief Counsel to Mr. Rowghani, which indicated that Standard No. 214, Side Door Strength, applies only to new vehicles, and not to doors sold as replacement parts.

In view of your concern about replacement parts, we have reviewed that interpretation, and our authority regarding replacement parts. Many of our safety standards apply only to complete vehicles, while others apply only to the individual components (whether original or replacement equipment). Some apply both to vehicles and to the components involved. Each of our standards includes an "Application" section, which clearly defines the scope of coverage, based on the nature of the safety issue and the vehicle/equipment items involved.

NHTSA's standards which apply to equipment (both original and replacement equipment) generally cover those types of items which can be used in many different vehicle lines, which are frequently replaced or sold separately, and which can be independently tested. These include such items as brake hoses (Standard 106), lamps and reflectors (Standard 108), tires (Standards 109, 117 and 119), windows and windshields (Standard 205), safety belt assemblies (Standard 209), child safety seats (Standard 213), and motorcycle safety helmets (Standard 218). Other safety systems require testing in a full-vehicle context, and our safety standards are applied to the vehicle rather than the component. Examples include brake performance (Standards 105 and 121), occupant crash protection (Standard 208), head restraints (Standard 202) and roof-crush resistance (Standard 216), as well as side-door strength.

As noted in the April 9 letter, Standard 214 applies only to whole cars, not to replacement parts, as stated in the application section (see S2 of Standard 214, copy enclosed). While most manufacturers have chosen to meet the Standard by adding reinforcement beams, we are aware of at least one vehicle (a gray-market imported Mercedes-Benz) which passed the standard's compliance test without such a beam. Further, while intuitively it seems that doors without a reinforcement beam are not as safe as ones with a beam, efforts to document a safety problem have been unsuccessful.

The current compliance procedures specify testing a door as part of a new vehicle (see S4 of Standard 214), since it does not appear feasible to specify an appropriate procedure for testing an individual new door (whether original or replacement) by itself. The reason for this is that a door's performance in resisting intrusion is dependent not only on the structure of the door itself, but also other factors such as the vehicle frame into which the door fits, and the hinges and latches which hold the door in place within the frame. In addition, vehicle seats may help resist intrusion and protect occupants. The current standard reflects these factors.

While the current standard does not apply to replacement doors, NHTSA has full authority to pursue any alleged safety problems with doors or any other vehicle components under the "defects" provision of the Safety Act. If evidence demonstrated that certain replacement doors presented an unreasonable risk to motor vehicle safety, the agency could order the manufacturer of such doors to repair or replace such doors. At the present time, however, we are not aware of a safety problem with replacement doors that would warrant the commencement of a defects investigation.

I appreciate your interest in the safety of vehicle parts and hope this information is helpful. For further discussion of the legal issues regarding the applicability of standards, your staff should feel free to contact our Chief Counsel, Mr. Paul Jackson Rice, at 366-9511.

Sincerely,

Jerry Ralph Curry

Enclosure /ref:214 d:2/l5/9l

ID: 2840o

Mr. C. I. Nielsen III
Vice President
General Sales Manager
Wesbar Corporation
P. O. Box 577
West Bend, WI 53095

Dear Mr. Nielsen:

This is in reply to your letter of February 17, 1988, asking for an interpretation of paragraph S4.l.l.7 of Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 108, which applies to turn signal lamps. In pertinent part this section requires turn signal lamps for vehicles whose overall width is 80 inches or more to "have an effective projected luminous area not less than 12 square inches." Your design has a lens area of 12 square inches incorporating an integral Class A reflex reflector, and you have asked whether you may include the "illuminated (by the turn signal bulb) reflex reflector portion of the turn signal lens" in your calculation.

We assume from your letter that the light shines through the reflector when the turn signal is activated, and that the reflector is not opaque. In this instance, the reflector area may be included as part of "the effective projected luminous area" within the meaning of S4.l.l.7.

I hope that this answers your question.

Sincerely,

Erika Z. Jones Chief Counsel

ref:108 d:3/l6/88