[Federal Register Volume 63, Number 65 (Monday, April 6, 1998)]
[Notices]
[Pages 16857-16858]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 98-8966]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
[Docket No. NHTSA-98-3306; Notice 2]


Trinity Trailer Mfg., Inc.; Grant of Application for Temporary 
Exemption From Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 224

    This notice grants the application by Trinity Trailer Mfg., Inc. 
(formerly Farm Bed Mfg., Inc.), of Boise, Idaho, for a three-year 
temporary exemption from Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 224, Rear 
Impact Protection. The basis of the application was that compliance 
would cause substantial economic hardship to a manufacturer that has 
tried in good faith to comply with the standard.
    Notice of receipt of the application was published in the Federal 
Register on January 15, 1998 (63 FR 2446).
    Trinity Trailer (``Trinity'') manufactures and sells the ``Eagle 
Bridge,'' a self-unloading bulk trailer that has small conveyor belts 
at the lower rear of the trailer to unload potatoes and other 
agricultural products. The rear shaft mount for the conveyor belt 
protrudes 24 inches to the rear of the trailer so that cargo can drop 
onto another conveyor belt that is located at the unloading site. 
Because Standard No. 224 excludes a ``special purpose vehicle,'' 
Trinity had asked NHTSA on June 28, 1996, for an interpretation that 
the Eagle Bridge qualified for exclusion as a special purpose vehicle 
because the trailer was manufactured with ``work-performing 
equipment.''
    On August 22, 1997, NHTSA replied that the Eagle Bridge was not 
excluded. Paragraph S4 of Standard No. 224 defines a special purpose 
vehicle as

a trailer or semi-trailer having work-performing equipment * * * 
that, while the vehicle is in transit, resides in or moves through 
the area that could be occupied by the horizontal member of the rear 
underride guard * * *.

(Emphasis added). As NHTSA wrote the applicant,

[t]he small conveyor belt of the Eagle Bridge at no time passes 
through the area where the horizontal member of the rear underride 
guard would be located, and it certainly does not do so while the 
vehicle is in transit.

    Trinity received NHTSA's interpretation approximately seven months 
before the date for compliance. Standard No. 224 required, effective 
January 26, 1998, that all trailers with a GVWR of 4536 Kg or more be 
fitted with a rear impact guard that conforms to Standard No. 223, Rear 
impact guards.

[[Page 16858]]

Because of the costs involved in re-engineering its trailers to 
accommodate a rear impact guard, Trinity has asked for an exemption of 
three years. The company presented cost estimates indicating that the 
costs to conform at the end of a three-year period would be $637,720 
with a corresponding increase in the price of its trailers of $709 
(estimate ``based on 300 trailers built per year or 900 trailers''), as 
compared with a cost to conform of $882,920 and a trailer price 
increase of $2,943 at the end of a one-year exemption (estimate ``based 
on 300 trailers built per year''). Trinity represents that an increase 
of this magnitude would effectively price its trailers out of the 
market. In the absence of an exemption, Trinity stated that it would be 
forced to close because the Eagle Bridge is its sole product. The 
company's net income for 1996 was only $137,798, which represented a 
decline from 1995's net income of $611,145. The company manufactured 
263 trailers in the 12-month period preceding the filing of its 
application.
    Trinity believes that it has made a good faith effort to meet 
Standard No. 224, saying that, prior to requesting its interpretation 
from NHTSA, ``hundreds of hours were spent to find an automatically 
retracting rear impact guard,'' only to find that none are available in 
the United States. Its engineers have not been successful ``in making a 
moveable guard or a moveable rear shaft and tail fins.'' The 
application contains the alternative means of compliance that have been 
examined, and sets forth the reasons for the rejection of each. It 
believes that it can achieve full compliance by the end of a three-year 
exemption period.
    Trinity argues that an exemption would be in the public interest 
and consistent with traffic safety objectives because there is no 
history of injuries from motor vehicle accidents involving the rear 
conveyor belt system on its trailers. Further, ``the possibility of 
injury to occupants of a vehicle impacting the rear of a Trinity 
trailer is minimal because of Trinity's wheels-back design.'' These 
trailers are used extensively by the agricultural industry in the 
Pacific Northwest, and the applicant estimates that ``well over half of 
all potatoes harvested in the States of Idaho and Washington are hauled 
in Trinity trailers.''
    No comments were received on the application.
    NHTSA has analyzed the economic and regulatory situation that 
confronts Trinity. Before receiving NHTSA's interpretation declining to 
exempt its kind of trailers from the application of Standard No. 224, 
Trinity appears to have devoted considerable time looking for a 
solution to its compliance problem. If the company devoted its entire 
resources to achieving compliance at the end of a one-year period, it 
estimates that this would cost it $882,920, and require a price 
increase of $2,943 per trailer. This cost figure represents more than 
the total of its combined net income for 1995 and 1996. It is likely 
that an exemption of only one year might create cash-flow problems for 
Trinity. To recapture its costs as soon as possible, the company is of 
the view that it would have to raise the price of its trailers almost 
$3,000, which would place it beyond the means of its customers. Thus, 
compliance may not be so much a problem of developing an engineering 
solution (which apparently is feasible within one year) as it is 
funding and implementing that solution in a financially realistic 
manner. The funds generated by three years of production will allow it 
to recapture its costs in an orderly manner, even though the estimated 
price of the trailer will still rise by $709 at the end of the 
exemption period.
    It is manifest that the public interest would not be served by 
denying Trinity an exemption, which the company avers would cause it to 
close, creating unemployment. The low volume of Trinity's production 
reduces the risk to safety of the trailers that will be produced under 
the exemption without a rear underride guard.
    In consideration of the foregoing, it is hereby found that 
compliance with Standard No. 224 would cause substantial economic 
hardship to a manufacturer that has tried in good faith to comply with 
the standard. It is further found that a temporary exemption would be 
in the public interest and consistent with the objectives of traffic 
safety. Accordingly, Trinity Trailer Mfg., Inc., is hereby granted 
NHTSA Temporary Exemption No. 98-2 from 49 CFR 571.224, Standard No. 
224, Rear Impact Protection, expiring March 1, 2001.

    Authority: 49 U.S.C. 30113; delegation of authority at 49 CFR 
1.50.

    Issued on April 1, 1998.
Ricardo Martinez,
Administrator
[FR Doc. 98-8966 Filed 4-3-98; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-59-P