[Federal Register Volume 69, Number 19 (Thursday, January 29, 2004)]
[Notices]
[Pages 4352-4354]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 04-1864]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration


Denial of Motor Vehicle Defect Petition, DP03-007

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

ACTION: Denial of petition for a defect investigation.

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SUMMARY: This notice describes the reasons for denying a petition 
(DP03-007) submitted to NHTSA pursuant to 49 U.S.C. 30162, requesting 
that the agency open a defect investigation into unintended 
acceleration involving model year (MY) 1996 and 1997 General Motors J-
cars (Chevrolet Cavaliers and Pontiac Sunbirds).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Bob Young, Office of Defects 
Investigation (ODI), NHTSA; 400 Seventh Street, SW.; Washington, DC 
20590. Telephone: 202-366-4806.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On September 23, 2003, NHTSA received a 
petition filed by Donald Friedman of MCR/LRI, Inc.; requesting that the 
agency ``open a defect investigation into unintended acceleration 
involving 1996 and 1997 model General Motors J-cars (Chevrolet 
Cavaliers and Pontiac Sunbirds [sic] [Subject Vehicles]).''
    The petitioner claims this request is based on a ``report [he] 
received for GM'' showing that it had received 660 complaints of 
unintended or sudden acceleration involving the subject vehicles. By 
comparison, the petitioner claimed, other GM models had far fewer 
complaints.
    NHTSA has reviewed the facts claimed to establish that a defect 
investigation of the subject vehicles for unintended acceleration 
should be opened. The results of this review and our analysis of the 
petition is provided in the DP03-007 Petition Analysis Report, 
published in its entirety as an appendix to this notice.
    For the reasons presented in the petition analysis report, there is 
no reasonable possibility that an order concerning the notification and 
remedy of a safety-related defect would be issued as a result of 
conducting the requested defect investigation. Therefore, in view of 
the need to

[[Page 4353]]

allocate and prioritize NHTSA's limited resources to best accomplish 
the agency's safety mission, the petition is denied.

    Authority: 49 U.S.C. 30162(d); delegations of authority at CFR 
1.50 and 501.8.

Kenneth N. Weinstein,
Associate Administrator For Enforcement.

Appendix--Petition Analysis--DP03-007

1.0 Introduction

    On September 23, 2003, the National Highway Traffic Safety 
Administration (NHTSA) received a petition filed by Donald Friedman 
requesting that it ``open a defect investigation into unintended 
acceleration [UA] involving 1996 and 1997 model General Motors J-
cars (Chevrolet Cavaliers and Pontiac Sunbirds [sic\1\]).'' In this 
petition analysis, we will refer to sudden acceleration incidents as 
``SAIs,'' incidents of unintended acceleration as ``UAIs,'' and to 
the MY 1996-97 GM J-cars as the ``Subject Vehicles.''
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    \1\ Pontiac's J-car model in MY 1996-97 was the Sunfire.
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    The petitioner claims, ``The basis for this request is a report 
we received for GM \2\ showing that it had received 380 complaints 
on unintended or sudden acceleration involving 1996 models and 280 
complaints involving 1997 models [a total of 660 complaints]. This 
compares with an average of around 20 complaints per year per model 
on other GM models and no more than 10 complaints per year on J-cars 
of years other than 1996 and 1997.''
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    \2\ The ``report'' referenced by the petitioner was a tabulation 
of GM customer complaints prepared by the plaintiffs in a product 
liability lawsuit.
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2.0 Background

    On April 14, 1997, at approximately 11:51 a.m., 21 year-old 
Timothy Langston was driving his MY 1997 Chevrolet Cavalier on a two 
lane road in Cherokee County, Georgia with two minor passengers; Lee 
and Alana Anderson. It is alleged that, after cresting a hill at 
about 40 mph, the car accelerated to approximately 94 mph, whereupon 
Mr. Langston lost control of the vehicle and it crashed. Timothy and 
Lee were killed and Alana was injured.
    On April 5, 1999 a wrongful death and personal injury lawsuit 
was filed in the State Court of Cobb County, Georgia on behalf of 
Mr. Langston and Mr. and Ms. Anderson.\3\ The suit alleges that the 
vehicle crash was due to unintended acceleration.\4\
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    \3\ Anderson-Barahona, et al. v. General Motors Corporation, 
(case no. 99A1971-4 (Anderson)). Settled on September 12, 2003.
    \4\ ``Unintended Acceleration'' (UA) involves events that begin 
after the vehicle has reached an intended roadway speed. This 
differs from ``Sudden Acceleration'' (SA) where the event typically 
begins while the vehicle is stationary.
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    According to General Motors, its response to a plaintiff pre-
trial discovery request included reports of alleged UA and/or SA 
incidents for all MY 1982 to 2000 GM passenger cars. In response to 
a separate discovery request, GM also produced reports concerning 
alleged brake failure in the subject vehicles.\5\
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    \5\ Anderson: GM's Motion in Limine, June 3, 2003, p. 5.
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    On July 3, 2003, after receiving, reviewing, and tabulating 
``thousands'' of GM customer complaints produced during discovery, 
the plaintiff introduced into evidence 235 non-duplicative reports 
of other incidents alleged to be substantially similar to that in 
Anderson (i.e., Other Similar Incidents or ``OSI's'').\6\ Of these, 
38 involved the MY 1996-1997 J-cars; 32 related to the MY 1996-1997 
N-car platform,\7\ and 84 concerned other MY 1996 and 1997 GM 
passenger cars. Because, according to the Plaintiffs, ``there would 
be no residual evidence that will categorically indicate the 
specific defect'' due to ``the destruction of the [Langston 
Cavalier], and the nature of the potential defects, including 
electrical malfunctions and computer errors,'' \8\ they introduced 
these alleged OSI reports as ``Evidence of a defect in General 
Motors' vehicles.'' \9\
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    \6\ Anderson: Response to GM's June 3rd Motion in Limine, July 
3, 2003, p. 3. ODI has not reviewed these complaints.
    \7\ Chevrolet Malibu, Pontiac Grand AM, Buick Skylark, and 
Oldsmobile Achieva, Cutlass, and Alero.
    \8\ Anderson: Response to Defendants June 3rd Motion in Limine, 
July 3, 2003, p. 2.
    \9\ Ibid, p. 3.
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    The plaintiffs retained Donald Friedman to offer expert 
testimony about the cause of the Langston crash. To aid in his 
analysis, the plaintiffs provided him with their tabulation of the 
thousands of reports received during discovery and copies of the J-
car OSI reports. Mr. Friedman later referred to the plaintiff's 
tabulation as a ``report for GM'' in his NHTSA petition.
    After receiving his petition, NHTSA wrote to the petitioner 
requesting a copy of the ``report'' and clarification of the data he 
presented. Without addressing our request for a copy of the report 
he identified initially, Mr. Friedman responded that his data could 
be found in pre-trial discovery material produced by GM in the 
Anderson case and referred us to General Motors.
    Subsequently, General Motors provided information concerning 
both the 660 complaints cited by the petitioner and the alleged 
OSI's identified by the plaintiff.

3.0 Petition Data Analysis

3.1 SAI and UAI

    The petitioner requested an investigation of the subject 
vehicles for ``unintended acceleration.'' He then states that the 
foundation for his request is a ``report'' documenting a substantial 
number of alleged ``unintended or [emphasis added] sudden 
acceleration'' complaints about the subject vehicles. Therefore, our 
analysis relates to complaints where either a SAI or UAI (SAI/UAI) 
was alleged. This is consistent with the plaintiff's--and 
petitioner's--approach in Anderson. For an explanation of the 
difference between SAI's and UAI's, please refer to footnote 4.

3.2 J-cars vs. Other GM models--Complaint Count

    GM's discovery production in the Anderson case included customer 
SAI/UAI allegations for all GM vehicles (including J-cars) for MY's 
1982-2000. In response to a separate discovery request, GM also 
produced braking-related complaints for the subject vehicles. Thus, 
the 660 complaints cited by the petitioner include allegations of 
unintended and/or sudden acceleration and braking-related issues 
involving the MY 1996-1997 J-cars. Since the complaint count for the 
other GM platforms does not include braking-related complaints, the 
J-car count is overstated by comparison.
    To overcome this shortcoming, we analyzed the OSI's identified 
by the plaintiffs in Anderson.\10\ Based on the OSI report count 
prepared by the plaintiffs from complaints produced by GM in pre-
trial discovery, we found the following MY 1996-97 GM passenger car 
platforms had these SAI/UAI report counts:
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    \10\ Anderson: Schedules A, B, and C; Plaintiff's July 3, 2003 
notice of filing documents in support of plaintiffs' response to 
defendants June 3, 2003 Limine motion.

Table 1.--Alleged Report Counts for Other Similar Incidents Involving SA
                                  or UA
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              MY 1996-1997 GM platform (model)               SA/UA count
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Z (Saturn).................................................            8
A (Cutlass, Century).......................................           10
F (Camaro, Firebird).......................................           14
K (Deville, Concours, Seville, SLS, STS)...................           15
W (Lumina, Monte Carlo, Grand Prix, Cutlass Supreme, Regal,           15
 Century Custom)...........................................
N (Malibu, Grand Am, Achieva, Skylark, Cutlass, Alero).....           32
J (Cavalier, Sunfire)......................................           38
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    From this analysis alone, the petitioner's rationale--that the 
MY 1996-97 J-cars should be investigated for unintended acceleration 
because they have far more reports than other GM models--does not 
appear justified because the total number of alleged SAI/UAIs is 
directly related to the number of these vehicles on the road. Thus, 
everything else being equal, the subject vehicles may have more 
reports than other GM vehicle platforms but, without normalizing for 
variations in the on-road fleet of each model, this information can 
be misleading. Therefore the total number of alleged SAI/UAIs is 
insufficient on its own to assess risk. To overcome this problem, we 
normalized the report counts identified in Table 1 by dividing the 
number of alleged SAI/UAI reports by the number of vehicles built to 
obtain a report count rate. The normalized rates are presented 
below.

[[Page 4354]]



 Table 2.--Report Rates for Other Similar Incidents Involving Alleged SA
                                  or UA
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                                                                Rate/
              MY 1996-1997 GM platform (model)                 100,000
                                                                 Vehs
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Z (Saturn).................................................         1.39
A (Cutlass, Century).......................................         5.52
F (Camaro, Firebird).......................................         7.75
K (Deville, Concours, Seville).............................         5.21
W (Lumina, Monte Carlo, Grand Prix, Cutlass Supreme, Regal,         1.49
 Century Custom)...........................................
N (Malibu, Grand Am, Achieva, Skylark, Cutlass)............         4.23
J (Cavalier, Sunfire)......................................         4.99
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    Based on this analysis, using data produced by GM in the lawsuit 
prompting this petition, the risk of an alleged SAI/UAI involving 
the subject vehicles is within the range of other GM models.

4.0 ODI Data

    ODI also looked at complaint counts in NHTSA's consumer 
complaint database. Our review identified 256 complaints coded as 
``Vehicle Speed Control'' (VSC) \11\ for the models identified in 
Tables 1 and 2. We then normalized this data to account for 
exposure, based on the number of vehicles built within each platform 
in MY 1996 and 1997, to determine whether incidents involving 
vehicle speed control malfunctions are more frequently reported to 
NHTSA by J-car owners.
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    \11\ With NHTSA's recent rollout of the ARTEMIS consumer 
complaint repository, all complaints that may involve a SAI and/or 
UAI are coded (or in the case of reports pre-dating the roll-out, 
re-coded) as Vehicle Speed Control-related. These SAI/UAI complaints 
form a subset of all complaints where a problem related to vehicle 
(e.g., engine) speed control was alleged (including, for example, 
stalling complaints).

           Table 3.--NHTSA Report Rate--Vehicle Speed Control
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                Rate/
              MY 1996-1997 GM platform (model)                 100,000
                                                                 Vehs
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Z (Saturn).................................................         4.71
A (Cutlass, Century).......................................         7.72
F (Camaro, Firebird).......................................         6.64
K (Deville, Concours, Seville).............................         5.95
W (Lumina, Monte Carlo, Grand Prix, Cutlass Supreme, Regal,         7.05
 Century Custom)...........................................
N (Malibu, Grand Am, Achieva, Skylark, Cutlass)............        10.15
J (Cavalier, Sunfire)......................................         6.04
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    This analysis does not indicate that the subject vehicles (MY 
1996-1997 GM J-cars) are experiencing vehicle speed control-related 
problems more frequently than other GM models.

5.0 Conclusion

    Based on the foregoing analysis, there is no reasonable 
possibility that an order concerning the notification and remedy of 
a safety-related defect would be issued as a result of granting Mr. 
Friedman's petition. Therefore, in view of the need to allocate and 
prioritize NHTSA's limited resources to best accomplish the agency's 
safety mission, the petition is denied.
[FR Doc. 04-1864 Filed 1-28-04; 8:45 am]
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