Interpretation ID: nht70-2.14

DATE: 06/22/70

FROM: AUTHOR UNAVAILABLE; R.A. Diaz; NHTSA

TO: General Motors Technical Center

TITLE: FMVSS INTERPRETATION

TEXT: This is in reply to your letter of May 7, 1970, requesting approval of an equivalent test procedure for interior compartment doors, in place of those specified in S3.3.1(a) and (c) of Standard No. 201.

Since the phrase "approved equivalent test procedure" appeared in the initial Federal motor vehicle safety standards, the Bureau's position on this subject has undergone some clarification. The manufacturer's primary responsibility is to produce vehicles or equipment that, when tested according to the applicable standards, meet the stated requirements. Although a manufacturer is responsible for ensuring that his products meet all the requirements of the standards, there is nothing in the Act that requires a manufacturer to perform any predetermined series of tests. If a particular test is actually "equivalent" to the procedure described in the standard, in the sense that the test results can be accurately correlated to the standard's requirements, there is no need to request approval of the Bureau, and there would be no legal significance to the approval if given. Conversely, if the test is not equivalent, so that an item that "possed" the test might still fail to conform to the standard, the request would be actually for a lowering of the standard, which could not be done without rulemaking procedures. For this reason, we will not grant the approval in the form in which it was requested.

The procedure that you described does, however, appear to be a distinct improvement in the method of testing this aspect of performance. We intend to initiate rulemaking procedures directed at amending the standard to incorporate that test.