Interpretation ID: 2281y
Governmental Affairs
Champion Motor Coach, Inc.
5573 North Street
Dryden, Michigan 48428
Dear Mr. Sims:
This responds to your November 6, 1989 letter to Robert Hellmuth, Director of NHTSA's Office of Vehicle Safety Compliance (OVSC). In that letter, you stated that OVSC had misinterpreted and misapplied the requirements of S5.5.1 and S5.5.2 of Standard No. 217, Bus Window Retention and Release (49 CFR 571.217). I conclude that OVSC correctly interpreted those sections of Standard No. 217 and correctly applied those sections to your company's buses.
The buses in question are not school buses and have a gross vehicle weight rating of more than 10,000 pounds. For such buses, section S5.5.1 of Standard No. 217 provides that: "... each emergency door shall have the designation 'Emergency Door' or 'Emergency Exit' ... followed by concise operating instructions describing each motion necessary to unlatch and open the exit, located within 6 inches of the release mechanism."
Your company has designated the door immediately adjacent to the driver's seating position in these buses as an emergency exit. Operating instructions for that emergency exit are located within 6 inches of the release mechanism. However, the designation of this door as an emergency exit appears on a label located on a stanchion immediately behind the driver's seat, facing the passenger seating area. This designation does not appear within 6 inches of the release mechanism. You suggest that this arrangement complies with Standard No. 217, because S5.5.1 requires only the operating instructions, and not the emergency exit designation, to be located within 6 inches of the release mechanism.
I disagree with your suggestion. While it might be possible to construe the language of S5.5.1 in the manner you suggest, the agency has consistently interpreted S5.5.1 as requiring that both the emergency exit designation and the operating instructions be located within 6 inches of the release mechanism. Nothing in the correspondence you refer to undermines this conclusion. Contrary to the assertion in your letter, there is a clear safety basis for requiring the emergency exit designation to be within 6 inches of the emergency exit release mechanism. This ensures that any person reaching the exit can quickly find both the release mechanism and the instructions. In an emergency, persons are used to finding an emergency exit where they see a label with the designation "Emergency Exit." In your company's buses, a person seeing the emergency exit label located on the driver's seat stanchion could be misled into thinking that there is an exit somewhere behind the driver's seat, rather than at the driver's door, thus wasting valuable escape time. This is exactly the type of situation S5.5.1 is intended to prevent.
Your letter also suggests that requiring the emergency exit designation within 6 inches of the release mechanism would substantially reduce the visibility of the emergency exit sign, since the operating mechanism is frequently located below the shoulder level of seated passengers. While this may be true in some cases, I do not believe it would be likely to impede emergency egress. In an emergency situation, the occupants of the seat adjacent to the exit are likely to be the first ones out of the exit, and would thus no longer impede the visibility of the exit designation for other passengers seeking to exit.
We are only focusing on the designation here. Also, once it is open, the instructions aren't needed.
Your letter also suggests that the emergency exit requirements for school buses, contained in S5.5.3, support your interpretation of S5.5.1, because the school bus emergency exit requirements specifically authorize the separation of the emergency exit designation and operating instructions. I must again disagree with you on this point. NHTSA recognized the considerable differences between school buses and other buses when Standard No. 217 was being developed. S5.5.3 addresses a very different set of circumstances. School buses typically have one emergency door, located at or near the rear of the bus. The requirement in S5.5.3 that the designation be in letters at least two inches high "at the top of or directly above the emergency exit" is designed to ensure that school bus passengers will be able to locate this exit from any seating position in the bus. This is not the case for your company's buses, which feature several window exits located throughout the bus, in addition to the exit at issue here.
The second issue raised in your letter concerns the requirements of S5.5.2 of Standard No. 217. That section requires that emergency exit "markings" be visible to occupants in specified locations, under lighting and occupant visual acuity conditions set forth in S5.5.2. You suggested that the emergency exit "markings" referenced in S5.5.2 refers only to the designation of an exit as an emergency exit, and not to the operating instructions for that emergency exit. I disagree with this suggestion as well. As we noted earlier, S5.5.1 sets forth requirements for both emergency exit designations and emergency exit operating instructions. Immediately following these requirements, S5.5.2 specifies that "each marking shall be legible ..." (emphasis added). S5.5.2 nowhere draws any distinction between markings designating an exit as an emergency exit and markings setting forth operating instructions for the emergency exit. Neither is any such distinction inherent in the use of the term "marking." Accordingly, the ordinary meaning of the term "marking" and the background of this regulatory provision show that as used in S5.5.2, the word "markings" refers to both the emergency exit designation and the emergency exit operating instructions required by S5.5.1.
If you have any further questions concerning these issues, please feel free to contact David Greenburg of this office at (202) 366-2992.
Sincerely,
Stephen P. Wood Acting Chief Counsel
ref:217 d:l/26/90