Interpretation ID: nht93-1.43

DATE: 02/19/93

FROM: JOHN WOMACK -- ACTING CHIEF COUNSEL, NHTSA

TO: BEVERLEY SILVER-CORBER

TITLE: NONE

ATTACHMT: ATTACHED TO LETTER DATED 1-29-93 FROM BEVERLEY SILVER-CORBER TO US DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, NHTSA (OCC 8303)

TEXT: This is in reply to your letter to the agency with respect to your wish to import into the United States a 1992 Honda Accord, which was not manufactured to conform to the automatic restraint requirements of U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 208 Occupant Crash Protection. You would like to use the car for a two-year period in the U.S. while your husband is in graduate school. You have asked whether you qualify for an exemption, and whether you will be allowed to import the car for the two years of study.

Under regulations of the Department of Transportation that govern the importation of motor vehicles, you, as a nonresident of the United States, are permitted to import your nonconforming Honda for a period of up to one year, provided that the importation is for your personal use, that you will not sell it during that time, and that the vehicle will be exported not later than the end of one year after entry (Title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, Section 591.5(d)). The reason for the one-year limitation is that, under the Road Traffic Convention (1952) and the Customs Convention on the Temporary Importation of Private Road Vehicles (1957), Conventions to which the United States is a party, an imported vehicle may be subjected to all the laws of any country in which it has remained longer than one year, including import duties and taxes. In recognition of the effect of these Conventions, we have adopted a one-year limitation on the temporary importation of nonconforming vehicles by nonresidents, and we do not grant waivers or exemptions from this requirement. However, if you return in the Honda to Canada at the end of the first year of your husband's studies, we would regard the export provisions as having been met, and a new one-year period would begin when the car is re-imported into the U.S. for your husband's second year of studies.

Although our regulations do provide for indefinite entry of nonconforming vehicles that are imported for "research, investigations, studies, demonstrations or training" (Section 591.5(j)), we do not interpret this as applying to importers who come to the U.S. to study. Rather, it applies to the importer who wishes to import a vehicle so that it may be studied.