Interpretation ID: 77-3.20

TYPE: INTERPRETATION-NHTSA

DATE: 07/01/77

FROM: AUTHOR UNAVAILABLE; Joseph J. Levin Jr.; NHTSA

TO: American Trailers Inc.

TITLE: FMVSR INTERPRETATION

TEXT: This is in response to your letter of June 10, 1977, concerning a vehicle manufacturer's responsibilities with regard to overloading.

You make reference to a November 10, 1976, letter from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) which stated that manufacturers must take reasonable steps to ensure that the vehicles they produce will not be overloaded by their users. Although we acknowledge that a manufacturer does not have direct control over the actual use of its vehicles, it does exercise indirect control over use through the vehicle's design.

The NHTSA has stated in the past that a vehicle's gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) is determined by the sum of its unloaded vehicle weight, 150 pounds for each designated seating position, and its rated cargo load. It is the cargo load rating that is most relevant to the problem of overloading. The rated cargo load should represent the manufacturer's assessment of the vehicle's cargo-carrying capacity and the maximum load at which the vehicle may be safely operated. A manufacturer must consider the maximum load capacity of the vehicle when it designs its cargo-carrying portion. If this is not done, the rated cargo load, and thus the GVWR, may be meaningless since the vehicle may have a cargo-carrying chamber which, if filled, would cause the vehicle to exceed its stated weight ratings. An illustration of such a situation would be a tanker truck which exceeds its GVWR when the tank is filled with a type of material appropriate for carrying in that cargo area. If the manufacturer could reasonably have anticipated that such cargo would be carried in the tanker, yet rated the vehicle with a GVWR which was less than the vehicle's weight when fully loaded with that cargo, a safety-related defect for which the manufacturer is responsible may be considered to exist.

The NHTSA does not expect manufacturers to be omniscient when it comes to the use of the vehicles they produce. It does, however, expect the stated weight ratings to reflect the design of the vehicles and the uses to which they can reasonably be anticipated to be put. Where the manufacturer has reason to know the specific commodity intended to be carried in its vehicles and those vehicles have a totally enclosed cargo area, as with a tanker, the rated cargo load is relatively easy to determine.

In your particular case, your responsibility for any subsequent overloading of the vehicles you manufacture would be determined by the reasonableness of your GVWR's and gross axle weight ratings (GAWR), given the size and configuration of your vehicles and the types of loads which they could reasonably be expected to carry. In the case of flat beds (no enclosed cargo area) a manufacturer would obviously not be able to provide weight ratings sufficiently high to prevent overloading in all instances. The design of flat beds necessarily permits overloading since the cargo area is unrestricted. Thus if the weight ratings specified appear to have been arrived at by a good faith determination based upon the types of loads the manufacturer anticipates will be carried, its responsibility with regard to weight rating specifications will have been satisfied and no safety-related defect will be attributable to it.

SINCERELY,

American Trailers, Inc.

June 10, 1977

Office of Chief Counsel National Highway Traffic Safety Admin. U. S. Department of Transportation

We have received a copy of your legal interpretation to Mr. Jackson Decker of E. D. Etnyre & Company (copy attached) in regards to GAWR rating and overloading of the same. Excerpts from your interpretation which is of concern to us is:

"A vehicle whose axle weight ratings are likely to be exceeded under the manufacturer's 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 rememdy 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 must take to insure 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."

Since we are a manufacturer on several different types of General Purpose vehicles, i.e. Dry Freight Vans, Insulated Vans, Grain Vans, and etc. which can haul a vary of array products, we would like some suggestions on how to eliminate GAWR and GVWR overloading. Obviously, we cannot control what type of commodities or density of commodities that can be "stuffed into a box." Your reasoning on a specific vehicle designed to haul a specific density load is understood, but to insist on a general purpose vehicle manufacturer to control overloading "short of refraining from production" is unreasonable.

Can the auto manufacturers control how many people you haul in your automobile or how much sand you haul in your pickup bed?

Your prompt answer on any suggestions would be appreciated.

Jerry W. McNeil Director of Engineering