[Federal Register Volume 62, Number 45 (Friday, March 7, 1997)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 10514-10516]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 97-5727]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

49 CFR Part 571

[Docket No. 95-93, Notice 3]
RIN 2127-AF76


Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Withdrawal of Proposed 
Rule, Announcement of Technical Workshop on Accelerator Control Systems

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

ACTION: Withdrawal of notice of proposed rulemaking, and announcement 
of a technical workshop.

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SUMMARY: In this document, NHTSA withdraws a proposal to amend the 
safety standard on accelerator control systems that would have deleted 
a provision that specifies return-to-idle times for a normally 
operating accelerator control system. The proposal was part of NHTSA's 
efforts to implement the President's Regulatory Reinvention Initiative.
    NHTSA has decided to withdraw its proposal in order to focus on the 
broader issue of making the accelerator control system standard more 
relevant for electronic accelerator systems. NHTSA announces a 
technical workshop, tentatively scheduled for March 24, 1997, to 
discuss electronic accelerator control technology and potential methods 
of assuring fail-safe performance.

DATES: Technical workshop: The technical workshop is tentatively 
scheduled for March 24, 1997. Those persons wishing to participate in 
the workshop should contact Mr. Patrick Boyd (at the address given 
below) not later than March 24, 1997.
    Written comments. Written comments on the subject matter of the 
workshop are due April 24, 1997.

ADDRESSES: The technical workshop will be held at the U.S. Department 
of Transportation building, 400 Seventh Street, SW., Washington, DC. A 
notice announcing the room number, and confirming the workshop date, 
will be published shortly after the deadline for the public to advise 
the agency of their intent to participate.
    Written comments. Written comments concerning the subject matter of 
the technical workshop should refer to the docket number and notice 
number cited at the beginning of this notice, and be submitted to: 
Docket Section, Room 5109, 400 Seventh Street, SW., Washington, DC 
20590 (Docket hours are from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.) It is requested, but 
not required, that 10 copies of the comment be provided.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For technical issues: Mr. Patrick 
Boyd, Office of Crash Avoidance Standards, NPS-21, telephone (202) 366-
6346.
    For legal issues: Ms. Dorothy Nakama, Office of Chief Counsel, NCC-
20, (202) 366-2992.
    Both may be reached at the National Highway Traffic Safety 
Administration, 400 Seventh St., SW., Washington, DC, 20590. Comments 
should not be sent to these persons, but should be mailed to the Docket 
Section.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

President's Regulatory Reinvention Initiative

    Pursuant to the President's March 4, 1995 directive, ``Regulatory 
Reinvention Initiative,'' to the heads of departments and agencies, 
NHTSA undertook a review of all its regulations and directives. During 
the course of this review, the agency identified rules that it could 
propose to eliminate as unnecessary or to amend to improve their 
comprehensibility, application or appropriateness. As described below, 
NHTSA identified Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 124 
Accelerator control systems (49 CFR 571.124) as one rule that might 
benefit from being amended.

Background of Standard No. 124

    Standard No. 124's purpose is to reduce deaths and injuries 
resulting from loss of control of the engine speed of a moving vehicle 
due to malfunctions in the vehicle's accelerator control system. Since 
1972, Standard No. 124

[[Page 10515]]

has specified requirements for ensuring the return of a vehicle's 
throttle to the idle position under each of the following two 
circumstances: (1) When the driver removes the actuating force 
(typically, the driver's foot or cruise control) from the accelerator 
control, and (2) when there is a severance or disconnection in the 
accelerator control system. Standard No. 124 applies to passenger cars, 
multipurpose passenger vehicles, trucks, and buses.
    Paragraph S5.1 of Standard No. 124 requires that, under any load 
condition, and within the time specified in S5.3, the throttle must 
return to the idle position from any accelerator position or any speed 
of which the engine is capable, whenever the driver removes the 
actuating force. The standard defines the throttle as ``the component 
of the fuel metering device that connects to the driver-operated 
accelerator control system and that by input from the driver-operated 
accelerator control system controls the engine speed.''
    Standard No. 124 has two further requirements to provide safety in 
the event of accelerator control failure. The first, specified at S5.1, 
requires ``at least two sources of energy,'' each capable of returning 
the throttle to idle position within the time limit for normal 
operation, from any accelerator position or speed whenever the driver 
removes the opposing actuating force. The second, specified at S5.2, 
requires that the throttle return to idle ``whenever any one component 
of the accelerator control system is disconnected or severed at a 
single point'' and the driver releases the pedal.
    Paragraph S5.3 requires that the throttle return to idle within 1 
second for vehicles of 4536 kilograms or less gross vehicle weight 
rating (GVWR) and within 2 seconds for vehicles with a GVWR greater 
than 4536. The maximum allowable time is increased to 3 seconds for any 
vehicle that is exposed to ambient air at -18 degrees to -40 degrees 
Celsius during the test or for any portion of a 12 hour conditioning 
period.

Prior Request for Comments and Public Response

    The agency published a request for comments (60 FR 62061) on 
December 4, 1995 to initiate a discussion of the accelerator control 
issues frequently raised by manufacturers in requests for 
interpretation.
    The questions involved two aspects of the standard: The return-to-
idle requirement and the single-point failure requirement. In their 
requests for interpretation, manufacturers had sought assurance that 
the presence of controls that lock the engine speed above the idle 
level to facilitate the use of auxiliary equipment for dumping, mixing, 
compacting, etc. would not be considered violations of the return-to-
idle timing requirements. Manufacturers had similar concerns about the 
degree of repeatability of idle speed necessary for compliance with the 
return-to-idle provisions. Some manufacturers were concerned that since 
the speed to which a vehicle returns may vary from one occasion to the 
next, the agency might regard speeds at the high end of the range of 
normal variations of idle speeds as a violation of the return-to-idle 
requirement. The agency requested comment on these issues to determine 
whether it should amend the standard to eliminate concern that the 
normal operation of accelerator controls could be confused with 
instances of failure.
    The second aspect of concern arises from the emerging technology of 
electronic accelerator control systems. The agency had received 
requests for interpretation expressing the belief that electronic 
accelerator control systems were not subject to the requirement that 
the engine return to idle in the event of a single point disconnection 
or severance of the system. Although NHTSA had written a letter to 
Isuzu in 1988 confirming that the single-point failure requirement 
applies to both electronic and mechanical accelerator controls, the 
agency requested comments on the need for language in the standard to 
clarify how the requirement applies to electronic accelerator controls.
    In the request for comments, NHTSA discussed clarifying the 
existing standard's language with specific performance requirements for 
enumerated types of disconnections and severances of mechanical and 
electronic accelerator controls. Most auto industry commenters voiced a 
preference for rescinding the standard, suggesting that market forces 
would assure safety without the need for Standard No. 124. However, 
they commented that, should the agency disagree about recision, a 
standard specifying fail-safe performance in the least design-specific 
terms would be preferable to the solution suggested in the notice. 
Industry commenters expressed a desire to participate in a public 
technical meeting with NHTSA concerning electronic accelerator controls 
and potential regulatory language regarding fail-safe performance.

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking

    NHTSA tentatively agreed with the commenters that market forces are 
likely to prevent the introduction of accelerator controls whose normal 
mode of operation is a threat to safety, but it disagreed that market 
forces would necessarily assure adequate fail-safe performance. 
Consequently, in a notice published on April 30, 1996 (61 FR 19020), 
NHTSA proposed to eliminate section S5.3, which contains the return-to-
idle timing tests for the normal operation of accelerator controls. As 
a rationale for the proposed removal of S5.3, NHTSA pointed out that 
its standards compliance test program has revealed no noncompliances 
with S5.3 for at least the past eight years. NHTSA stated that with the 
elimination of S5.3, Standard No. 124 would be concerned solely with 
fail-safe requirements for engine controls. An effort to define idle 
speed tolerances and the normal operation of controls for operating 
special equipment would no longer be necessary.
    NHTSA further stated its belief that the market force argument 
cannot be made for the fail-safe performance of accelerator controls. 
The normal operating characteristics of a vehicle's accelerator control 
system are immediately and constantly apparent to the buyer and user. 
An unsatisfactory design would be met with criticism and rejection. 
However, the vehicle owner has no easy way to experience directly the 
consequences of severances of the control circuits on loss of engine 
control and little motivation to do so.

Public Comments on the NPRM

    In response to the NPRM, NHTSA received comments from the Advocates 
for Highway and Auto Safety (Advocates), Allied Signal Inc., Chrysler, 
General Motors, Mr. Honore J. Lartigue, and Volkswagen. Industry 
comments to the NPRM were positive but perfunctory. Chrysler and Allied 
Signal pointed out that the return-to-idle time required for partially 
disabled systems by the retained fail-safe performance requirements 
would be no different than the normal operation requirements for trucks 
proposed for elimination. Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety 
characterized the proposal as an abuse of agency discretion. It 
criticized NHTSA's tentative opinion of the lack of need for 
requirements for the normal operation of accelerator controls as 
unsupported with appeals to specific data, studies, or other evidence. 
1
    Generally, the industry commenters expressed more interest in the 
electronic accelerator control issues, which were not the specific 
subject of the NPRM, than in the proposed elimination of S5.3. Allied 
Signal, Volkswagen and General Motors cited the difficulty of applying 
the language of the current

[[Page 10516]]

standard to electronic accelerator controls, including even the basic 
terms ``throttle'' and ``idle position.'' General Motors'' comment 
dismissed the proposal as unimportant and instead presented useful 
ideas about fail-safe provisions it considered applicable to electronic 
accelerator controls. It stated that with electronic engine controls, 
throttle position is no longer the singular factor that controls engine 
speed. It is possible to exploit control of spark advance and/or fuel 
metering as alternative means of preventing uncontrolled engine speed. 
Therefore, General Motors suggested that the present requirement of two 
sources of energy to return the throttle to the idle position be 
replaced by a more general requirement of two means capable of 
returning the engine to idle in the event of the disconnection or 
severance of the other. It also suggested a second provision that if 
two means of returning the engine to idle cannot be provided, then a 
fail-safe feature would either shut-down the engine or automatically 
shift the transmission into neutral in the event of a disconnection or 
severance of the accelerator control.
    General Motors' suggestions invite questions about their 
applicability to diesel engines and about the desirability of shifting 
the transmission into neutral, but they represent constructive thought 
about the preservation of fail-safe performance in the face of changing 
technology for accelerator control.

Agency Withdrawal of NPRM

    After carefully reviewing the public comments, NHTSA has decided to 
withdraw its proposal to remove S5.3 from Standard No. 124. The public 
commenters addressing the issue have highlighted the fact that there 
are many unresolved areas involving electronic accelerator controls. 
NHTSA is withdrawing the proposal so that it can fully review the issue 
of making the standard more relevant to electronic systems prior to 
considering any other amendments to the Standard.

Technical Workshop

    As stated in its December 4, 1995 request for comments (60 FR 
62061), NHTSA plans to hold a technical workshop on the need to amend 
Standard No. 124. NHTSA tentatively plans to hold the workshop on March 
24, 1997, at the U.S. Department of Transportation Building (400 
Seventh Street, SW.) in Washington, DC. NHTSA believes its long range 
plans for Standard No. 124 will be facilitated if workshop participants 
and submitters of written comments discuss the questions raised in the 
December 1995 request for comments.
    The agency wishes workshop participants to discuss:
    (1) The principles of operation of existing and potential 
electronic accelerator control systems for gasoline and diesel engines;
    (2) The principles of operation of existing and potential means of 
providing fail-safe performance in the event of loss of accelerator 
control by the primary system; and
    (3) Suggestions for regulatory requirements that will assure the 
fail-safe performance of electronic accelerator control systems.
    The agency therefore asks those persons interested in participating 
to make their interest known by contacting Mr. Boyd, and describing the 
topic(s) the person wishes to address. Although NHTSA expects to hold 
the technical workshop in March 1997, it would appreciate being 
informed if any interested persons need more time to prepare remarks. 
If many people state that more time is necessary, NHTSA will pick a 
later date. The two persons mentioned at the beginning of this 
termination notice are available to answer questions.
    NHTSA will issue another notice announcing the room number of the 
workshop and agenda items to be discussed. If necessary, the date for 
the workshop and submission of written comments will be adjusted.
    Accordingly, as discussed in the preamble, the notice of proposed 
rulemaking published in the Federal Register on April 30, 1996 (61 FR 
19020) is withdrawn.

    Authority: 49 U.S.C. 322, 30111, 30115, 30117, and 30166; 
delegations of authority at 49 CFR 1.50 and 501.8.

    Issued on: March 4, 1997.
L. Robert Shelton,
Associate Administrator for Safety Performance Standards.
[FR Doc. 97-5727 Filed 3-6-97; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-59-P