Interpretation ID: aiam2315
Chairman
Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Finance
Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce
House of Representatives
Washington
DC 20515;
Dear Mr. Murphy: I am writing in response to former Chairman Lionel Van Deerlin's Apri 21, 1976, letter concerning Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 301-75, *Fuel System Integrity*, as applied to motor homes. His letter is particularly concerned with the request of the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA) for a delay in the standard's effective date of September 1, 1976, for the first phase of the requirements that apply to motor homes.; This effective date requires clarification in the case of multi-stag vehicles. RVIA members typically manufacture motor homes by installing bodies on chassis that have been supplied to them by other manufacturers. In such situations, the meaning of the September 1, 1976, effective date is not that all motor homes completed after that date must comply with the standard. Section 567.5(a)(7) of 49 CFR Part 567, *Certification*, permits the final stage manufacturer of a multi-stage vehicle to consider as the vehicle's date of manufacture any date that is neither earlier than the completion date of the chassis nor later than the completion date of the entire vehicle. The practical result of this provision is that the standard requires compliance only of those motor homes whose *chassis* are completed on or after September 1, 1976.; Because the ability of a motor home to comply with Standard No. 301-7 is substantially affected by both the design of the chassis and the manner in which the vehicle is completed, it is not meaningful to apply the standard directly to incomplete vehicles. All that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requires of incomplete vehicles is the following: those that are manufactured after September 1, 1976, must be capable of being completed into complying motor homes and must be accompanied by the incomplete vehicle document described in 49 CFR Part 568, *Vehicles Manufactured in Two or More Stages*. That document will include, with respect to Standard No. 301-75, either (i) a statement that the motor home as completed will comply with the standard provided no alterations are made in identified components of the incomplete vehicle, or (ii) a statement of specific conditions of final manufacture under which the completed motor home will comply with the standard. While Part 568 generally offers the incomplete vehicle manufacturer a third option--to make no representation whatever of the compliance status of his product--that option is unavailable in this context because his work substantially affects compliance.; The RVIA has argued that a delay in the standard's effective date fo completed motor homes is necessary for its members to gain experience with chassis that have been designed for completion into complying motor homes. The NHTSA recognizes the need for such experience or its equivalent through the provision of technical information by the incomplete vehicle manufacturer. However, the agency expects motor home manufacturers to obtain this experience or information, through cooperation with the chassis manufacturers, in advance of the September 1, 1976, effective date. While such advance manufacturing or provision of information on the part of chassis manufacturers is not required by any regulations of this agency, it is required by the commercial realities of their relationships with the motor home manufacturers. A simple delay in the standard's effective date would merely delay the date by which incomplete vehicle manufacturers would be required *by the NHTSA* to supply chassis that have been designed for completion into complying motor homes. Such a delay would thus not provide the relief that the RVIA has requested.; The RVIA has, in effect, requested the agency to establish a 'experience interval' by retaining September 1, 1976, as the time by which chassis must be designed for ultimate compliance and setting a new and later 'secondary' effective date for the activities of the RVIA members. With this approach, a completed motor home would be required to comply with Standard No. 301-75 only if it were based on a chassis manufactured after the secondary effective date. While the establishment of such an 'experience interval' might at first appear to be a simple solution to an acknowledged problem, the NHTSA has concluded that it is not only unnecessary but inappropriate as well.; It is unnecessary because the ordinary private dealings between moto home manufacturers and their suppliers can ensure that sufficient technical information, experience with redesigned chassis, or some combination of the two will be available before the 'primary' effective date. The legal requirements of compliance by vehicles built with chassis that are manufactured after that date can be expected to trigger those market forces which will induce suppliers of incomplete vehicles to cooperate with RVIA members. Any 'experience interval' would represent an intrusion by the government into the satisfactory operation of those forces. This position was announced in the agency's response to an RVIA petition for reconsideration of effective dates (39 FR 40857, November 21, 1974) (copy enclosed).; The design of those motor homes that do not already comply wit Standard No. 301-75 can be modified in many ways to achieve compliance. Changes might be made in both chassis and bodies. Bodies might be redesigned in such a way that no change in chassis construction is necessary. Conversely, all of the necessary protection might be incorporated in an upgraded chassis design, assuming that the addition of a motor home body did not present protrusions that would degrade this protection. In fact, this latter approach is already being followed in the case of school buses with a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating of more than 10,000 pounds. I understand that the School Bus Manufacturers Institute and several of its major chassis suppliers have reached agreements that provide for substantially all the necessary impact protection in the chassis.; While RVIA members may not be as successful as the schoolbu manufacturers have been in inducing their chassis suppliers to redesign for compliance, the above example illustrates the importance of the government's avoiding involvement in such contractual relationships. This agency is concerned in the first instance with the performance of completed vehicles, rather than the allocation between incomplete vehicle manufacturers and final- stage manufacturers of the task of redesigning for such performance. The agency lacks both the information and the expertise to determine either the most appropriate form of such redesign or the time that each manufacturer might consider desirable to effect the transition. This determination is therefore best made through cooperation or negotiation between the private parties involved. Because this determination is inextricably connected with decisions concerning the advance supply of redesigned chassis, it is impossible for the NHTSA to become involved in negotiations over the latter without interference in the former. The creation of an 'experience interval' as requested by the RVIA would therefore be inappropriate. In any event, such a modification of the standard's effective dates is prohibited by Section 108 of the Motor Vehicle and Schoolbus Safety Amendments of 1974 (Pub. L. 93-492).; Finally ,the NHTSA has not found it necessary to take special steps t encourage incomplete vehicle manufacturers to furnish advance information to motor home manufacturers. We understand that such cooperation is already taking place.; Sincerely, James B. Gregory, Administrator