[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 112 (Friday, June 11, 1999)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 31533-31536]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-14834]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

49 CFR Part 571


Denial of Petition for Rulemaking; Federal Motor Vehicle Safety 
Standards

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

ACTION: Denial of petition for rulemaking.

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SUMMARY: This document denies Mr. W. A. Barr's petition to require 
warning systems on all vehicles to alert operators and the immediate 
public when a vehicle is not immobilized and may move after the 
operator exits the vehicle. Based on our analysis of his petition, we 
conclude that the cost of requiring the system requested by Mr. Barr 
would far exceed the potential benefits.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Chris Flanigan, Office of Safety 
Performance Standards, NHTSA, 400 Seventh Street, SW, Washington, DC 
20590. Mr. Flanigan's telephone number is: (202) 366-4918. His 
facsimile number is (202) 366-4329.

Background

1980 Defect Investigation of Ford Vehicles

    In 1980, we conducted an extensive investigation (Office of Defects 
Investigation (ODI) Case No. C8-02) of alleged safety-related defects 
in model year 1970 through 1979 Ford vehicles. On June 6, 1980, we made 
an initial determination that a safety-related defect existed in all of 
those vehicles. We determined that the park gear may not be securely 
engaged after an attempt to shift; that the transmission may shift to 
reverse by itself without warning, allowing the vehicle to move while 
unattended; and that such uncontrolled vehicle movement may result, and 
had resulted, in injury or death to vehicle occupants or pedestrians. 
However, the Secretary of Transportation never made a final 
determination of the existence of a safety-related defect. Instead, 
this investigation was terminated by a settlement agreement entered 
into on

[[Page 31534]]

December 30, 1980. The settlement agreement required Ford to send both 
warning letters and self-sticking labels to all owners of the subject 
vehicles. These letters and labels informed recipients of our 
determination and reminded them of proper procedures to follow when 
parking and leaving their vehicles. The proper procedure includes 
making sure the transmission is in the park position, setting the 
parking brake, and shutting off the engine.

Mid-1980's Petitions for Defect Investigation

    On March 6, 1985, the Center for Auto Safety (CFAS) petitioned us 
to initiate an expedited defect investigation into the failure of 
automatic transmissions in 1966 through early 1980 Ford vehicles to 
hold or engage in park. CFAS stated that these vehicles have been the 
cause of more fatalities and injuries than any other defect since our 
1980 settlement with Ford. CFAS believed that, because the terms of 
this settlement called for reopening the investigation if the warning 
labels failed to decrease park to reverse incidents, we should do so. 
CFAS stated that the reason for the supposed ineffectiveness was that 
the labels were not being placed in a significant number of vehicles. 
We denied this petition based mainly on the fact that there was no new 
technical information presented by CFAS which would alter our findings 
in the 1980 defect investigation. Also, the data showed that the number 
and rate of park to reverse incidents involving the subject Ford 
vehicles had declined in every year since the 1980 settlement. ODI 
compiled a report discussing the rationale for denying CFAS's petition 
that was published on July 3, 1985 (P85-15-30) (hereafter referred to 
as ``the 1985 ODI report'').
    Mr. Barr petitioned us on December 4, 1986, and again on June 29, 
1989, to commence a formal defect investigation to address not only 
Ford vehicles, but all vehicles with automatic transmissions. In these 
petitions, Mr. Barr asserted that any movement of a vehicle with no 
driver and with an automatic transmission which has been placed in the 
park position occurred because of an ``illusory park'' unless the shift 
lever was removed from the latched position after the driver exited the 
vehicle. He further asserted that the possibility of such an illusory 
park condition constituted a safety-related defect.
    Mr. Barr stated that a vehicle's transmission is in an ``illusory 
park'' position when either the vehicle operator does not fully move 
the shift lever into the park position or the transmission components 
are degraded, broken, or maladjusted. He further states that, if a 
transmission is in illusory park, it will appear to the vehicle 
operator that the vehicle is immobilized upon exiting the vehicle. Two 
modes of park to reverse incidents could result when the vehicle is in 
illusory park. If the vehicle's engine is running, internal forces in 
the transmission could cause the park system to migrate to the reverse 
position. As a result, the vehicle would move rearward in powered 
reverse. If the vehicle's engine is not running and the transmission 
comes out of park, the vehicle could move forward or backward, 
depending on the grade of the roadway. Mr. Barr asserts that, unless 
the shift lever is manually removed from the latched park position 
after the operator has left the vehicle, any movement of a vehicle with 
no operator and an automatic transmission occurs because the vehicle 
was in the ``illusory park'' position.
    We denied both of these petitions because there was no reason to 
expect that any further investigation of this matter would result in a 
determination that the vehicles in question contained a safety-related 
defect, because we had already conducted a thorough investigation on 
this subject for the 1985 ODI report.

The Current Petition for Rulemaking

    On June 24, 1998, Mr. Barr petitioned us to conduct rulemaking to 
require a warning system on all vehicles that would alert operators and 
the immediate public when a vehicle is not immobilized and may move 
after the operator exits the vehicle. Mr. Barr states that ``it is 
reasonable that every empty vehicle with an automatic transmission 
which moves, does so because the selector lever was not in the park 
slot or was in the park slot but the park system linkage was broken or 
maladjusted so that the system could not properly place the pawl in its 
park position.'' He bases this assertion on analysis provided by Ford 
in response to our investigation. In Ford's response, it states that, 
if the driver shifts into park, it is impossible for the transmission 
to ``jump'' or ``slip'' into reverse unless a transmission component is 
broken or the control system is grossly maladjusted.
    As a result of vehicles being placed into ``illusory park,'' Mr. 
Barr believes that there are 64 fatalities and 650 injuries annually. 
He derives these numbers first by citing data obtained from the 1985 
ODI report. For this report, Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) 
data for the period of 1975 through 1984 were searched for all 
incidents which involved driver-less vehicles and in which a pedestrian 
was killed. This search produced 443 records for an average of 44.3 
fatalities per year. Mr. Barr also cites data submitted to us by Ford 
regarding the CFAS petition (P85-15) which lists fatalities caused by 
non-Ford vehicles with automatic transmissions. From this list, Mr. 
Barr extracted only the vehicles that were not contained in the FARS 
data used in the 1985 ODI report. From this he found an additional 197 
fatalities during the same ten year period for an average of 19.7 per 
year. Adding the annual averages of 44.3 fatalities found in the FARS 
data to the 19.7 fatalities found in the list Ford submitted gives Mr. 
Barr his estimate of 64 fatalities per year.
    Mr. Barr estimates the injury rate of 650 per year by using data 
contained in the 1985 ODI report. The report shows that ODI received 
reports on 4,597 injuries and 412 fatalities as a result of park to 
reverse incidents in all model year 1966 through 1979 Ford vehicles. 
This yields a ratio of 11.2 injuries per fatality. By assuming that 
this Ford vehicle ratio would be similar when comparing injuries to 
fatalities in all driver-less vehicle incidents, he estimated that the 
number of injuries would be approximately ten times the number of 
fatalities, thus coming up with the value of 650 injuries per year.
    Because Mr. Barr believes that there is no feasible mechanical fix 
that would remedy the perceived problem, he petitioned us to implement 
new requirements for vehicles with automatic transmissions to have 
warning systems that alert the driver and/or nearby pedestrians when 
one of three situations occur. First, when the driver opens the driver 
side door and the transmission shift lever is not latched in park, a 
warning of this condition would be activated until the driver latches 
the shift lever in park or closes the door. Second, when the driver 
opens the driver side door and the park system linkage is broken or 
maladjusted, another warning annunciating that condition would be 
activated until the driver deactivates it by opening a manual switch. 
This switch would be automatically closed when the ignition is next 
activated. Third, if the driver ignores either of the first two 
warnings, a loud, audible, exterior warning would be activated to warn 
the driver and nearby pedestrians that the vehicle is not properly 
immobilized.

Agency Analysis of Mr. Barr's Petition

    Based on our analysis of Mr. Barr's petition, we conclude that he 
has made

[[Page 31535]]

a number of assumptions, many of which cause him to substantially 
overstate the problem size. For instance, in his petition, Mr. Barr 
asserted that ``it is reasonable that every empty vehicle with an 
automatic transmission that moves, does so because the selector lever 
was not in the park slot or was in the park slot but the park system 
linkage was broken or maladjusted so that the system could not properly 
place the pawl in its park position.'' The data obtained from the 1985 
ODI report that he cites in the petition refer to vehicles in which 
there was no driver present and a pedestrian was killed. This does not 
necessarily mean that the vehicles were empty. As discussed below, in 
many of the cases, while they were driverless, there were other 
passengers present in the vehicles. One of these other passengers may 
have caused the transmission to move out of the park position by 
inadvertently bumping the shift lever. Further, if children are left 
unattended and unrestrained, they could play with the shift lever and 
take it out of park.
    Cases of children moving the shift lever can be avoided by taking a 
few simple precautions. First, as required by all States, children 
should be restrained in a vehicle at all times. This would make it more 
difficult for them to access the shift lever. Also, children should not 
be left unattended. Second, most States also require that, when a 
vehicle is left unattended, the vehicle's transmission must be placed 
in the park position and the parking brake must be engaged. Moreover, 
many states require that the key be turned to the position which locks 
the ignition and must be removed. Most owners' manuals also contain 
these precautions. When these precautions are taken, it is highly 
unlikely for a passenger to be able to move the vehicle's shift lever 
out of the park position. And, if a vehicle's transmission was somehow 
jostled out of park by some means, the parking brake would be set and 
the engine would be off which would also make it highly unlikely for 
the vehicle to be involved in a park to reverse incident.
    As stated above, we believe that Mr. Barr's estimates of fatalities 
caused by park to reverse incidents are substantially overstated. He 
used FARS data for a time span (1975 through 1984) that includes the 
vast majority of the Ford vehicles that were subject to the 1980 defect 
investigation. We believe a fair estimate of the current problem should 
not include a population of old vehicles that had an unusually high 
incidence of transmission problems in an analysis of the entire vehicle 
population. The rate of park to reverse incidents in the non-Ford 
vehicle population was much lower than that of the Ford vehicles during 
that time span. In fact, for model year 1970 through 1979 Ford 
vehicles, there were 72 fatalities reported to ODI between 1981 and 
1985 that were apparently caused by a park to reverse incident. During 
this same period of time, a total of 26 such fatalities was reported to 
ODI that involved model year 1970 through 1979 General Motors (GM), 
Chrysler, and American Motors Corporation vehicles combined. Thus, the 
Ford vehicles apparently were involved in almost three times more park 
to reverse incidents than the next three largest manufacturers 
combined. For this reason, we believe that using the 1975 through 1984 
FARS data will substantially overestimate the average number of 
fatalities that could be expected to occur in the late 1990's.
    In addition, Mr. Barr's use of the 1975-1984 time period misses the 
effects of a significant amendment to Standard No. 114, Theft 
Protection. During the 1975-1984 time period examined by Mr. Barr, 
Standard No. 114 required that vehicles have a key locking system that 
prevents the vehicle's steering or forward self-mobility, or both, when 
the ignition key is removed. Significantly, Standard No. 114 at that 
time did not prohibit systems in which the transmission lever could be 
shifted when the vehicle is parked with the ignition locked.
    That changed with our May 30, 1990, rule amending Standard No. 114 
(55 FR 21868). Since September 1, 1992, when the changes became 
effective, Standard No. 114 has required the key-locking system to 
prevent removal of the key unless the transmission or transmission 
shift lever is locked in ``park'' or becomes locked in ``park'' as the 
direct result of removing the key. This was a significant change that 
required many manufacturers to redesign their automatic transmissions. 
Mr. Barr's use of 1975-1984 data completely misses the impacts of this 
upgrade of the safety standard. We conclude that the failure to 
consider this upgrade is another cause of Mr. Barr substantially 
overestimating the number of rollaway crashes.
    Mr. Barr also used an inaccurate method in determining the number 
of annual injuries which occur as a result of park to reverse 
incidents. He cites our driverless vehicle injury and fatality reports 
for Ford's 1966 through 1979 model year vehicles and applies this ratio 
to all other manufacturers' vehicles. As stated above, the Ford 
vehicles exhibited an unusually high rate of involvement in park to 
reverse incidents and, therefore, should not be used to estimate the 
involvement of other non-Ford vehicles. Based on the significantly 
lower rate of involvement in park to reverse incidents of the non-Ford 
vehicles, we believe Mr. Barr's assumptions that the rate of injury 
will be approximately the same in both Ford and non-Ford vehicles and 
that data from 1975 through 1984 is still valid in the late 1990's 
caused him to substantially overestimate the expected injuries.
    We do, however, recognize that some transmissions may contain 
defects that have the ability to create unsafe conditions by allowing 
vehicles to move after the driver believes that he or she has placed 
the transmission in park. However, we believe that Mr. Barr's approach 
to remedy these occasional problems is far too costly. His approach 
would be expensive as manufacturers would have to redesign 
transmissions to accommodate a sensor system to detect the multiple 
situations he describes when the transmission is not adequately placed 
in the park position. Internal and external annunciators would have to 
be installed that could produce a clear audible warning. Because 
transmission control systems can be electronically or mechanically-
controlled, it is difficult to estimate an exact cost for the system. 
However, we believe it would exceed $20 per vehicle. With approximately 
16,000,000 million vehicles produced annually in the U.S., this would 
put the annual cost of such a requirement at a minimum of $320,000,000, 
which would far exceed the likely anticipated benefits of such a 
requirement.
    We will continue to investigate particular makes and models of 
vehicles on a case-by-case basis where there is information indicating 
the existence of a possible safety defect. Using this method, we can 
focus on a specific vehicle's specific problem. For instance, we have 
conducted defect investigations regarding defective gear selection 
indicators that may show that the vehicle is in park when actually it 
is not, water leakage into transmissions which could cause 
malfunctions, and broken internal components which could also cause 
malfunctions. In many cases, these investigations have led 
manufacturers to recall the vehicles to provide a remedy for the 
problem.
    In accordance with 49 CFR part 552, this completes our review of 
the petition. We have concluded that there is no reasonable possibility 
that the amendment requested by the petitioner would be issued at the 
conclusion of a rulemaking proceeding. Accordingly, we deny Mr. Barr's 
petition.


[[Page 31536]]


    Authority: 49 U.S.C. 30103, 30162; delegation of authority at 49 
CFR 1.50 and 501.8.

    Issued on: June 7, 1999.
L. Robert Shelton,
Associate Administrator for Safety Performance Standards.
[FR Doc. 99-14834 Filed 6-10-99; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-59-P