Interpretation ID: aiam4128
Executive Director
Automobile Importers Compliance Association
1607 New Hampshire Avenue
N.W.
Washington
DC 20009;
Dear Mr. Jackson: This responds to your letter following up our correspondence regardin the designation of the target zones under 49 CFR Part 541, *Federal Motor Vehicle Theft Prevention Standard*. In this letter, you quoted the statement in my February 4, 1986, letter to you that NHTSA 'knows of a number of means of inscribing numbers on curved surfaces that would permit direct importers to mark those surfaces within the $15 cost limit.' You asked me to provide information to you on the means of inscription to which I referred, including the name of the process and the address and the telephone number of supplier firms.; The means of inscribing curved surfaces to which I referred in m previous letter to you include technologies such as chemical etching, sandblasting, 'shot-peening', and hard-point vibration. Each of these technologies would enable a person to inscribe markings on curved surfaces, and none requires the purchase of very expensive equipment.; This agency does not provide commercial referrals of supplier firms fo a number of reasons. Section 606(c) of the Motor Vehicle Information and Cost Savings Act (15 U.S.C. 2026(c)) requires each *manufacturer* to certify that its vehicles comply with the theft prevention standard. For this reason, NHTSA does not approve, endorse, or certify that any particular means of marking complies with the theft prevention standard. A listing of supplier firms might be viewed as an approval or endorsement of those firms and their means of marking, and be contrary to the statutory requirement.; Further, as a policy matter, this agency does not provide commercia referrals even absent statutory requirements. By listing a group of supplier firms, the agency would give those firms an unintended 'government sanction' for their products. Conversely, any such listing would unintentionally denigrate all firms not included in the listing. Any commercial referrals by this agency would give rise to these potential problems no matter what disclaimers NHTSA attached to the referral.; The theft prevention standard is a performance standard that specifie criteria with which the markings used by your group must comply. You are free to choose the means of compliance. In making that choice, you will have to use your business judgment to decide whether you should inscribe the markings yourself or pay someone else to inscribe the markings. If you choose to pay someone else to inscribe the markings, the choice of whom you should select would again be your decision.; Sincerely, Erika Z. Jones, Chief Counsel