Interpretation ID: aiam2429
Chief Product Engineer
E. D. Etnyre & Company
200 Jefferson Street
Oregon
IL 61061;
Dear Mr. Decker: This is in belated response to your letters of June 22, 1976 concerning the availability of NHTSA interpretation letters and the assignment by vehicle manufacturers of Gross Axle Weight Ratings.; Letters written by this agency that interpret the Federal Motor Vehicl Safety Standards or accompanying regulations are regularly compiled by standard or regulation number and placed in a public file (the 'redbooks') in the Docket Section at Room 5108, 400 Seventh Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. Copies of these letters are distributed informally by various trade associations, as you have noted. However, there is currently no subscription service available directly from the NHTSA. I recommend that you periodically (bimonthly, perhaps) telephone the Docket Section (202 426-2768) to find out whether entries have recently been made in the Redbooks under the standards and regulations that are of particular concern to you.; You have also asked several questions concerning the relationshi between an axle's Gross Axle Weight Rating (GAWR) and the overloading of that axle when the vehicle is in use. GAWR is defined in 49 CFR 571.3 as; >>>the value specified by the vehicle manufacturer as the load carrying capacity of a single axle system, as measured at the tire-ground interfaces.<<<; It is thus a rating assigned by the manufacturer at the time o manufacture. A vehicle whose axle weight ratings are likely to be exceeded under the manufacturer's intended or reasonably forseeable conditions of usage would probably be considered to contain a safety-related defect. Such a vehicle would be subject to the notification and remedy provisions of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, as amended (15 U.S.C. 1392 *et seq*.).; We cannot prescribe specific steps that a vehicle manufacturer mus take to ensure that a GAWR would not be found so low that it would be a safety-related defect. For example, if a warning in the owner's manual against loading in a certain manner is likely to be ignored, then such a warning would not, by itself, be sufficient. The NHTSA expects the vehicle manufacturer to take reasonable steps, short of refraining from production, to minimize the likelihood of vehicle misuse through overloading.; Sincerely, Frank Berndt, Acting Chief Counsel