Interpretation ID: aiam2952
Manager
Engineering Services
Blue Bird Body Company
P.O. Box 937
Fort Valley
GA 31030;
Dear Mr. Milby: This responds to your August 15, 1978, petition asking for changes i Standard No. 222, *School Bus Passenger Seating and Crash Protection*, as that standard applies to the measurement of contact area. In particular, you ask the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to amend the standard adopting a specific test medium for measuring contact area and deleting the existing list of acceptable contact area test mediums currently established in the agency's compliance test procedures.; On July 19, 1978, the NHTSA responded to an earlier petition (Decembe 20, 1977) submitted by you on this same issue. In that letter, the NHTSA denied your requested amendment of the standard. Your current petition presents no additional data or arguments supporting your suggested modification that were not presented and thoroughly considered in our determination of your first petition. Accordingly, for the reasons specified in our July 19, 1978, letter to you, the agency denies your suggested rulemaking.; In your August 15 petition, you suggested that Standard No. 222 shoul incorporate more detailed test procedures, because some of the agency's other safety standards specify test procedures in greater detail. Standard No. 222 currently specifies test procedures to be used by manufacturers in complying with the standard. However, like all of the agency's standards, Standard No. 222's compliance test procedures are even more detailed than the requirements specified in the standard.; The NHTSA writes safety standards as simply as possible while providin the necessary detail for manufacturers to comply with their requirements. A manufacturer is then permitted to develop its own test procedures as long as its procedures are compatible with the requirement of the standard. The NHTSA, itself, devises tests that it uses for testing a vehicle's compliance. Whenever possible, these tests are available to manufacturers, and manufacturers are free to adopt them or to proceed with their own test procedures. Your twice- submitted petition would have the NHTSA rewrite its standards in a manner that would specify test procedures in greater detail. Such an approach would increase the complexity of safety standards if done uniformly to all standards and would in fact be detrimental to small manufacturers. The purpose of allowing some variation in details of test procedures is to permit a manufacturer to develop test procedures that are tailored to that manufacturer's needs and constraints. For example, certain test procedures used by the NHTSA may be too costly for a small manufacturer. Under the current compliance system, any manufacturer can develop a less expensive alternative test methodology. Under the system that you propose, however, a manufacturer would be required to adopt the test procedures specified in the standard. Since your suggestion, if applied to all safety standards, could add costs to the agency's regulations without achieving any significant benefits, the NHTSA determines that your suggested amendment is not in the public interest.; Sincerely, Joseph J. Levin, Jr., Chief Counsel