Interpretation ID: nht91-3.43

DATE: May 8, 1991

FROM: Paul Jackson Rice -- Chief Counsel, NHTSA

TO: George Ziolo

TITLE: None

ATTACHMT: Attached to letter dated 3-18-91 from George Ziolo to Administrator, US DOT/NHTSA (OCC 5853)

TEXT:

This responds to your letter styled as a "Petition for Rectification of an Error" in Standard No. 208, Occupant Crash Protection (49 CFR 571.208). Your letter suggested that the version of Standard No. 208 published in the October 1990 edition of the Code of Federal Regulations retroactively changed the requirements for vehicles manufactured between January 1, 1972 and August 31, 1989. You stated that this change consisted of a new requirement that the manual belts at ALL front seating positions be equipped with a warning system to show when the belt is not fastened, whereas previously only manual belts at the driver's position had to be equipped with such a warning system. The change to Standard No. 208's warning system requirement identified in your letter was never made, so no action by the agency is necessary to alleviate your concerns. A detailed explanation is set forth below.

In your letter, you identified several sections of Standard No. 208 in the October 1990 version of Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations that, in your view, require safety belt warning systems at front seating positions in addition to the driver's seat. You asserted that S4.1.1.3.1(a) and S4.1.1.3.2 require the front outboard passenger's safety belt in vehicles manufactured between January 1, 1972 and August 31, 1973 to be equipped with a warning system, while the front outboard and front center passenger's safety belt are required to be equipped with a warning system by S4.1.2.3.1(a) and (b) and S4.1.2.3.2. Your assertions of the meaning of these sections are incorrect.

At the outset, we note that the versions of the sections of Standard No. 208 that were identified in your letter are verbatim identical in the October 1990 version of Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations to the October 1989 version of those sections and to every version of those sections of Standard No. 208 that has been published since 1984, when the automatic crash protection requirements were reinstated in Standard No. 208. Accordingly, it is not clear why you believe that the October 1990 version of these sections of Standard No. 208 wrought any change.

The sections of Standard No. 208 identified in your letter all require various front seating positions to be equipped with "a seat belt warning system that conforms to S7.3." S7.3 of Standard No. 208 establishes requirements for a warning system only at the driver's seating position. Thus, a vehicle that has a conforming warning system for the driver's position only would comply with S7.3 and all other sections of Standard No. 208 that require safety belts to be equipped with a warning system. This has been the agency's position for many years now and it has not been modified by anything in the October 1990 version of Standard No. 208.

I hope this information is helpful.