National Highway Traffic Safety Administration November 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice grants the YES! Sportscars application for temporary exemption from certain advanced air bag requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 208, Occupant Crash Protection. This exemption applies to the YES! Roadster 3.2 and 3.2 Turbo (hereinafter collectively referred to as ``the YES! Roadster''). In accordance with 49 CFR part 555, the basis for the grant is that compliance would cause substantial economic hardship to a manufacturer that has tried in good faith to comply with the standard, and the exemption would have a negligible impact on motor vehicle safety. The exemption for the YES! Roadster is effective September 1, 2006 and will remain in effect until August 31, 2009. In accordance with the requirements of 49 U.S.C. 30113(b)(2), we published a notice of receipt of the application \1\ in the Federal Register and asked for public comments.\2\ We received no comments on the application.

This document announces receipt by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of a petition for a decision that 1999-2000 Hatty 45 foot double axle trailers that were not originally manufactured to comply with all applicable Federal motor vehicle safety standards (FMVSS) are eligible for importation into the United States because they have safety features that comply with, or are capable of being altered to comply with, all such standards.

NHTSA published a final rule in December 2004 that amended the Federal motor vehicle safety standard on brake hoses. In early 2005, the agency received several petitions for reconsideration of the rule and a petition to delay the effective date of the final rule. At present, the rule is to take effect on December 20, 2006. To allow for more time to respond to petitions for reconsideration, and to give industry more time to meet new requirements, this document proposes to delay the effective date of the final rule for one year, to December 20, 2007.

Section 402 of title 23 of the United States Code requires the Secretary of Transportation to promulgate uniform guidelines for State highway safety programs. This notice revises six of the existing guidelines to reflect program methodologies and approaches that have proven to be successful and are based on sound science and program administration. The guidelines the agency is revising today are Guideline No. 3Motorcycle Safety, Guideline No. 8Impaired Driving, Guideline No. 14Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety, Guideline No. 15Traffic Enforcement Services (formerly Police Traffic Services), Guideline No. 19Speed Management (formerly Speed Control), and Guideline No. 20Occupant Protection.

This document sets forth the reasons for denial of two petitions submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requesting the agency to decide that left-hand drive (LHD) 2001-2002 Mitsubishi Evolution VII and 2003 Mitsubishi Evolution VIII LHD passenger cars that were not originally manufactured to comply with all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) are eligible for importation into the United States. The petitions contended that 2001-2002 Mitsubishi Evolution VII LHD passenger cars are eligible for importation because they have safety features that comply with, or are capable of being altered to comply with, all applicable FMVSS, and that 2003 Mitsubishi Evolution VIII LHD passenger cars are eligible for importation because they are substantially similar to vehicles that were originally manufactured for importation into and sale in the United States and that were certified as complying with the safety standards (the U.S.-certified version of 2003 Mitsubishi Evolution VIII LHD passenger cars), and are capable of being readily altered to conform to those standards.

In July 2003, the agency published a final rule updating our Federal motor vehicle safety standard on glazing materials. As part of that rulemaking, boundaries were established for shade bands on vehicle windshields in order to limit their potential encroachment on the driver's field of view. As part of the new shade band requirements, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Recommended Practice J100 (rev. June 1995), ``Class `A' Vehicle Glazing Shade Bands,'' was incorporated by reference into the standard. However, in a July 2005 final rule responding to petitions for reconsideration of that earlier rulemaking, the standard's provisions related to shade bands requirements were amended, and as a result, a later but substantively identical version of SAE J100 (i.e., the November 1999 revision) was inadvertently included in the standard. The July 2005 final rule should have referenced SAE J100 (rev. June 1995), the document properly incorporated by reference into the safety standard. This document corrects this inconsistency resulting from administrative error.