[Federal Register Volume 60, Number 129 (Thursday, July 6, 1995)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 35169-35170]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 95-16480]



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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

49 CFR Part 571

[Docket No. 88-21, Notice 10]


Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Bus Emergency Exits and 
Window Retention and Release

AGENCY: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 
Department of Transportation (DOT).

ACTION: Denial of petition for reconsideration.

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SUMMARY: This notice denies a petition for reconsideration submitted by 
Thomas Built Buses, Inc. (Thomas), requesting NHTSA to delay the 
effective date of certain provisions of the final rule of November 2, 
1992. In that rule, NHTSA revised the minimum requirements for school 
bus emergency exits and specified improved access to school bus 
emergency doors, effective May 2, 1994.
    Due to a misunderstanding within the industry about the term 
``daylight opening'' in the 1992 rule, NHTSA published a final rule 
dated May 4, 1994 delaying implementation of the new requirements by 
four months, i.e., until September 1, 1994.
    NHTSA has decided to deny Thomas' petition because the relief 
sought by the petitioner was, in effect, granted by a May 1995 final 
rule issued by the agency. That final rule replaced the new 
requirements with charts specifying the number of required school bus 
emergency exits based on seating capacity.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Charles Hott, Office of Vehicle Safety 
Standards, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 400 Seventh 
Street, SW, Room 5320, Washington, DC 20590. Telephone (202) 366-0247.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    On November 2, 1992, NHTSA published a final rule adding several 
requirements to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (Standard) No. 
217, Bus emergency exits and window retention and release, 57 FR 
49413). The effective date of the new requirements was specified as May 
2, 1994.
    That final rule retained the requirement that all school buses have 
either a rear emergency door of specified dimensions or a left-side 
emergency door and a push-out rear window, at the option of the 
manufacturer. The rule added a requirement that, among other things, 
the total area in square centimeters of emergency exits on school buses 
must collectively amount to at least 432 times the number of designated 
seating positions on the bus. The rule also provided that the front 
service door area and the previously required emergency exits are to be 
counted toward meeting the total emergency exit area requirement. If 
those areas are insufficient to meet the total emergency exit area 
requirement, manufacturers must provide additional exits as specified 
in the rule.
    The rule specified that each exit was to be credited with the 
amount of area equal to its ``daylight opening.'' That term was defined 
in the rule as ``the maximum unobstructed opening of an emergency exit 
when viewed from a direction perpendicular to the plane of the 
opening.'' The preamble to the final rule did not include a further 
discussion of what might constitute an obstruction.
    On December 3, 1992 Blue Bird petitioned for reconsideration of the 
November 2, 1992 final rule, arguing that the final rule failed to make 
school bus emergency exit requirements equivalent to non-school bus 
emergency exit requirements. In response to that petition and an 
earlier (February 1992) Blue Bird petition for rulemaking concerning 
sliding exit windows and the use of windows instead of other types of 
exits, the agency issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on 
December 1, 1993 (58 FR 63321). The notice proposed to permit the 
installation of emergency exit windows other than pushout windows, and 
to allow manufacturers the option of installing either two sliding 
emergency exit windows or a side emergency exit door as the first means 
of providing the additional emergency exits on school buses. In 
addition, the NPRM proposed two alternate means of determining the 
maximum amount of area that could be credited for all types of 
emergency exits on school buses, and that school bus additional 
emergency exit requirements be expressed in the form of tables.
    On January 8, 1994, Wayne Wheeled Vehicles (Wayne) requested 
clarification of the terms ``daylight opening'' and ``unobstructed 
opening.'' On March 24, 1994, NHTSA replied, in pertinent part:

    [A]n obstruction in this context [daylight opening] would 
include any obstacle or object that would block, obscure, or 
interfere with, in any way, access to that exit when opened. In 
determining the maximum unobstructed opening of any emergency exit, 
we would subtract, from the total area of the opening, the area of 
any portions of the opening that cannot be used for exit purposes as 
a result of the obstruction.

 
[[Page 35170]]

    Both Blue Bird and Thomas objected to that interpretation and by 
letters to the agency dated April 20 and April 27, 1994, respectively, 
requested that NHTSA delay the effective date of the new requirements. 
Thomas requested a delay pending the issuance of additional 
interpretations as applied to other emergency exits. Blue Bird 
requested a delay until September 1, 1994, or alternatively, until 
issuance of a final rule basing the number of exits on seating 
capacity, thereby rendering ``daylight opening'' irrelevant.
    NHTSA concluded that the term ``daylight opening'' had been 
arguably ambiguous prior to the Wayne interpretation. Therefore, by 
final rule dated May 4, 1994 (59 FR 22997), the agency allowed 
manufacturers the option of complying with the clarified new 
requirements or continuing to comply with the previous emergency exit 
requirements of the standard, that is, a rear emergency exit door or a 
left side emergency exit door and a rear pushout window, until 
September 1, 1994.
The Petition

    Thomas' petition for reconsideration expressed concern about 
NHTSA's response of April 1, 1994 to an earlier Thomas request for an 
interpretation of what constitutes an obstruction and how close to the 
door an object must be to be considered an obstruction. NHTSA responded 
by referring Thomas to the Wayne interpretation. Thomas argued in its 
petition that although the Wayne interpretation may have answered 
Wayne's questions, Thomas was still unable to calculate ``daylight 
opening'' and was still unable to determine the number of required 
emergency exits for each vehicle.
    In its petition, Thomas stated that since its rear emergency doors 
and pushout windows satisfy the requirements of S5.4 regarding the 
passage of a parallelepiped and ellipsoid respectively, Thomas should 
be able to regard those exits as unobstructed and thus credit the full 
area of those openings. Following the same reasoning, Thomas suggested 
that it should be allowed to credit the full area of its front service 
door. Under the Wayne interpretation, however, Thomas stated that its 
45 inch by 24 inch side emergency exit door would be credited by NHTSA 
as only a 45 by 12-inch opening.1

    \1\ In the Wayne interpretation, NHTSA stated that if a side 
emergency exit door were partially obstructed by a seat, the area 
behind the seat bounded by the sides of the opening, a horizontal 
line tangent to the top of the seat back, and a vertical line 
tangent to the rearmost portion of the top of the seat back would be 
subtracted from the total area of the opening in determining the 
``maximum unobstructed opening'' of the exit.
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    Thomas stated that because of the requirement for a 12 inch aisle 
leading to a side door exit, a 32 inch door is now more common than the 
24 inch door. The wider door provides more space between the front of 
the seat back and the front vertical side of the door opening. Thomas 
asserted that additional space is sufficient to provide usable exit 
area. Thomas argued that since NHTSA recognizes that pushout windows 
that can accommodate an ellipsoid are useful emergency exits, NHTSA 
ought to give credit for areas of door openings that can also 
accommodate the ellipsoid. Thomas argued that if an area such as the 
area between the front of the seat back and the forward vertical edge 
of a 32 inch doorway will accommodate an ellipsoid, the agency should 
consider that area as usable exit space also.
    Finally, Thomas argued that one of the shortcomings in the November 
1992 final rule was that the number of capacity-based emergency exits 
required by that rule differs between manufacturers because differences 
in manufacturers' door sizes and designs result in differences in their 
calculations of the amount of ``daylight opening.'' Thomas asserted 
that the Wayne interpretation injected another variable into that 
calculation. Therefore, because of its continuing uncertainty in 
calculating ``daylight opening'' and determining the proper number of 
emergency exits, Thomas recommended that NHTSA do one of the following:
    1. Define the parameters for determining whether a portion of an 
exit can be regarded as usable exit space, and thus counted toward the 
total required amount of exit space;
    2. Specify minimum exit sizes and replace the new exit requirements 
with a chart specifying the number of required school bus emergency 
exits based on seating capacity; or
    3. Delay the new requirements until NHTSA issues a final rule 
adopting one the agency's December 1, 1993 proposals for limiting the 
amount of area that can be credited to an exit and adopts the same type 
of chart mentioned in the second recommendation.

Agency Response to the Petition

    Thomas' petition, submitted to NHTSA on June 1, 1994, was styled as 
a petition for reconsideration of the May 4, 1994 final rule which 
extended the effective date of the emergency exit requirements of the 
November 2, 1992 final rule. The arguments set forth in the petition, 
however, only addressed the issue of ``daylight opening'' and purported 
to explain why the Wayne interpretation was wrong or at least 
inadequate to address Thomas' concerns. NHTSA believes, therefore, that 
the Thomas petition, rather than asking NHTSA to reconsider the 
agency's extension of the effective date of the new emergency exit 
requirements, is in reality a request for further interpretation of 
``daylight opening.''
    Regardless of whether Thomas' submission can be properly regarded 
as a petition for reconsideration, the relief sought by Thomas has, in 
effect, already been granted. On May 9, 1995 (60 FR 24562) the agency 
published a final rule amending Standard No. 217 in accordance with the 
proposals in the December 1, 1993 NPRM. In addition to amending the 
requirements concerning the use of exit windows in lieu of doors and 
the requirements for non-school buses, the final rule also deleted the 
term ``daylight opening.'' That deletion eliminated the need to 
calculate the daylight opening area of each exit to determine the 
number of additional emergency exits required for a school bus of a 
given capacity. In addition, the final rule specified minimum sizes of 
required emergency exits and set out the required number of emergency 
exits in the form of tables.
    Since the relief sought by Thomas has already been granted, its 
petition for reconsideration is denied.

    Authority: 49 U.S.C. 322, 30111, and 30162; delegation of 
authority at 49 CFR 1.50.

    Issued on June 29, 1995.
Barry Felrice,
Associate Administrator for Safety Performance Standards.
[FR Doc. 95-16480 Filed 7-5-95; 8:45 am]
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