[Federal Register Volume 69, Number 119 (Tuesday, June 22, 2004)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 34632-34635]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 04-14074]



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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

49 CFR Part 571

[DOT Docket No. NHTSA-01-9765]
RIN 2127-AE59


Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard; Radiator and Coolant 
Reservoir Caps, Venting of Motor Vehicle Coolant System

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

ACTION: Withdrawal of rulemaking.

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SUMMARY: The purpose of this document is to announce the withdrawal of 
a rulemaking in which the agency had considered establishing a new 
Federal motor vehicle safety standard for radiator and coolant 
reservoir caps. After reviewing the available information and given the 
possible limited and uncertain safety benefits associated with the 
proposed requirement, the agency has decided to withdraw this 
rulemaking.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For non-legal issues: Mr. Kenneth O. 
Hardie, Office of Crash Avoidance Standards, National Highway Traffic 
Safety Administration, 400 Seventh Street, SW., Washington, DC 20590, 
Telephone No. (202) 366-6987. His FAX number is (202) 493-2739. For 
legal issues: Ms. Dorothy Nakama, Office of Chief Counsel (202) 366-
2992. Her FAX number is (202) 366-3820. You may send mail to both of 
these officials at National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 400 
Seventh Street, SW, Washington, DC 20590.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Background

    In April 1992, NHTSA received a petition for rulemaking submitted 
by Mr. John Giordano, recommending the establishment of a new safety 
standard that would require the use of thermal locking safety radiator 
caps. Mr. Giordano brought to our attention the RadLock thermal locking 
radiator cap. He contended that his suggested new safety standard would 
prevent the accidental scalding of persons who hastily open the cap of 
a hot motor vehicle radiator.
    During operation, a motor vehicle engine becomes very hot. Motor 
vehicle engine cooling fluid (also known as coolant) can reach 
temperatures as high as 118 to 129 degrees Celsius (245 to 265 degrees 
Fahrenheit) and pressure levels as high as 110 to 117 kilopascals (kPa) 
(16 to 17 pounds of pressure per square inch). Under such high 
temperature and pressure conditions, a person's removal of a standard 
radiator cap will allow hot fluid and steam to rush out of the neck of 
the radiator. When the system is under pressure, especially high 
pressure, removing a radiator cap can cause it to ``explode,'' i.e., 
the cap can be forcibly ejected or dislodged from the neck of the 
radiator in some way. A person close to the radiator may be sprayed 
with the hot fluid or steam that is ejected, and be scalded, possibly 
severely.
    In support of his petition, Mr. Giordano asserted that over 100,000 
radiator cap scald incidents occur annually in the U.S. resulting in 
over 20,000 victims requiring treatment at hospital emergency rooms and 
burn care facilities each year. [DOT Docket NHTSA 2001-9765-07 and 
(June 1, 2001 66 FR 29749)]. Mr. Giordano submitted four medical 
journal articles, and a letter from the Burn Special Projects 
Coordinator at the Washington Hospital Center, DC. The most relevant 
and informative article was authored by Dr. C.G. Ward and Dr. J.S. 
Hammond of the University of Miami School of Medicine. The article 
stated that during a three-year period from January 1979 through 
December 1981, a total of 86 patients (an average of 29 a year) with 
radiator-associated injuries required hospital admission to the 
University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Burn Center. The article stated 
that twice that number of patients (an average of 58 per year) were 
treated, but not hospitalized, during that three-year period for 
radiator-associated injuries. The article suggested a considerable 
number of the involved vehicles were manufactured between 1970 and 
1975.
    Mr. Giordano also provided a May 20, 1992 letter from Mr. Mark S. 
Lewis, MS, RRT, Burn Special Projects Coordinator at the Washington 
Hospital Center Burn Center, in Washington, DC. Mr. Lewis provided 
information that approximately 10 percent of scald injuries in the 
District of Columbia can be attributed to removing radiator caps.
    None of the articles included extrapolation of these data to 
national estimates of the number of injuries associated with radiator 
cap removal. No similar attempt to extrapolate the data was made by the 
petitioner.
    In order to obtain information to assess the validity of the 
assertions in Mr. Giordano's petition, we published a ``Request for 
Comments'' document in the Federal Register, requesting comments on the 
necessity and feasibility of rulemaking to prevent scald injuries by 
requiring thermal locking radiator caps or other devices on motor 
vehicles with water-cooled engines. (June 10, 1993; 58 FR 32504.) NHTSA 
received 18 comments. The data in the public comments did not provide 
useful information on the total annual number of radiator cap-related 
scald incidents. In 1993, we changed the status of action on this 
petition from the ``rulemaking phase'' to the ``research phase.''
    To gather more information on the extent of scalds resulting from 
radiator cap incidents, NHTSA entered into an interagency agreement 
with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in July 1993 to 
collect radiator cap-related injury data by using the CPSC's National 
Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS). The NEISS data are 
collected from a sample of 91 hospitals of the 6,127 hospitals in the 
United States and its territories with at least six beds that provide 
emergency care on a 24-hour/day basis. These data are used to estimate 
the number of persons non-fatally injured and treated in hospital 
emergency rooms nationwide.
    Injury data were collected by the CPSC from October 1, 1993 to 
September 30, 1994. The CPSC's data collection effort was completed and 
the resulting data were delivered to the NHTSA's National Center for 
Statistics and Analysis (NCSA). In November 1997, NCSA published a 
technical report, DOT HS 808 598, titled ``Injuries Associated with 
Specific Motor Vehicle Hazards: Radiators, Batteries, Power Windows, 
and Power Roofs'' that compiled the data from the CPSC's injury data 
collection effort. The technical report includes estimates of the 
number of persons injured as a result of incidents involving motor 
vehicle radiators.
    The technical report estimated that during the period of study 
(October 1, 1993 through September 30, 1994), 19,638 persons received 
scald injuries nationwide in incidents involving motor vehicle 
radiators. Of the 19,638 persons, approximately 77 percent (15,118 out 
of 19,638) were injured during activities associated with the radiator 
cap.
    Regarding the types of vehicles in which the radiator cap injuries 
were incurred, passenger cars represented 91 percent of the cases, 
pickup trucks approximately 7 percent of the cases and trucks and vans 
comprised the remaining cases. As for the model years of the vehicles 
involved, 65 percent of the motor vehicles were 1980-89 model years, 
with 52 percent of these being model years 1980-84. About 26 percent of 
the incidents involved 1975-79 models, about 8 percent involved

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models older than 1975, and less than 1 percent involved newer 
vehicles, i.e., model years 1990-1994. The report did not compare the 
absolute numbers of injuries for a given model year of vehicles to the 
number of those vehicles on the road to determine if there was any 
trend in the rate of occurrence of those injuries.
    The small number of injuries (1 percent) for model years 1990-1994 
vehicles appeared to be anomalous. NHTSA is not sure how to account for 
the small number for MY 1990-1994. One possible explanation is that 
these newer vehicles experienced fewer mechanical failures overall. 
Also, not all MY 1994 vehicles were taken into account because the CPSC 
data collection period ended in September 1994, by which time not all 
MY 1994 vehicles were sold and on the road.
    During the 1993/1994 data collection effort, NHTSA and CPSC 
implemented a telephone callback questionnaire system that permitted 
NHTSA to authenticate cases for which information in the NEISS record 
of the case, particularly in the text field allowed for describing the 
incident involved, was not clear as to exactly what happened. The total 
number of radiator cap cases reflected in the 1993/1994 data includes a 
number of cases that are based on information gathered by telephone 
callback. Information on the model year of the involved vehicles was 
also obtained through telephone callback.
    Based upon these estimates, NHTSA decided to further investigate 
the cost and feasibility of developing and implementing a new Federal 
motor vehicle safety standard to regulate radiator and coolant 
reservoir cap performance. Accordingly, NHTSA contracted with Ludtke & 
Associates in early 1997 to determine the variable manufacturing costs, 
weights, lead time, and capital investment associated with 
incorporating the use of temperature or pressure-locking radiator and 
coolant recovery tank caps as standard equipment in motor vehicles. 
Since no pressure-locking caps were found to exist, NHTSA requested 
that Ludtke & Associates design a prototype pressure-locking cap and 
provide an estimate of the expected increase in cost associated with 
requiring a pressure-locking cap for all motor vehicles under 10,000 
lbs. Ludtke & Associates estimated the additional cost to consumers to 
be $0.65 for a radiator cap and $0.43 for a coolant reservoir cap.
    On June 1, 2001, NHTSA published a NPRM (66 FR 29747) [DOT Docket 
No. NHTSA-2001-9765] proposing to regulate radiator and coolant 
reservoir caps on new passenger cars, multi-purpose passenger vehicles 
and light trucks with such caps. To accompany this proposal, NHTSA also 
published a Preliminary Regulatory Evaluation titled ``FMVSS No. 402 
Radiator and Coolant Reservoir Caps Venting of Motor Vehicle Coolant 
Systems''. The purpose of the proposed rulemaking was to reduce the 
number of scald injuries that occur when people remove radiator caps or 
coolant reservoir caps from motor vehicle engines, and to reduce the 
likelihood that the discharge of hot fluids from a manually operated 
pressure venting system will scald persons removing the radiator cap. 
The proposed rulemaking contained three significant proposals:
    (1) The cap removal must be accomplished with a combination of 
motions, including a downward force coupled with rotary movement,
    (2) The radiator cap or pressurized reservoir cap must not be 
removable when the system pressures is at or exceeds 14 kPa (2 psi) and
    (3) The venting path for hot fluids must be downward and toward the 
center of the vehicle.
    NHTSA proposed a radiator cap safety standard based upon pressure, 
not temperature as suggested by Mr. Giordano. The agency tentatively 
concluded that the locking requirements for caps should be based upon 
pressure, instead of temperature. We took this approach because, 
although the temperature of the fluid in the radiator is related to the 
safety problems addressed by the proposal, we believed the most 
important safety consideration in providing a solution to radiator-
related scalds was the pressure in the coolant system. If there were 
little pressure to force liquid or steam up when the cap is removed, 
the risk of hot scalding fluid or steam being ejected from the radiator 
filler neck or coolant system reservoir would be essentially 
eliminated. Also, ambient temperature under the hood of a vehicle 
without the engine running could approach 125 degrees Fahrenheit (51.6 
degrees Celsius) during the hot part of a summer day in many States in 
the southern tier of the United States. Thus, Mr. Giordano's suggestion 
might result in persons' not being able to add radiator fluid (because 
of a locked cap) in circumstances in which there is no danger of hot 
liquid or steam being ejected from the coolant system during cap 
removal.

II. Comments on the NPRM

    We received comments both supporting and opposing the proposed 
radiator safety cap standard. Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety 
stated that it supports the main features of NHTSA's proposed rule, and 
argued that substantial redesign of current radiator and coolant 
reservoir caps must be ensured by establishing performance requirements 
for preventing removal of the caps while the potential for effluent 
ejection is still high. Other commenters supporting the proposal 
included the Burn Foundation and Angela Rabbitts and Nicole E. Alden of 
the New York Presbyterian Hospital Burn Center.
    While the auto industry, including members of the Alliance of 
Automobile Manufacturers, supported the intent of the proposal--to 
reduce the incidence and severity of burn and scald injuries associated 
with engine cooling systems--they argued that a radiator cap and 
coolant system reservoir standard is not necessary at this time for the 
following reasons:
    (1) The data used to support the NPRM is based on vehicles that 
utilized older designs of engine coolant systems. Over the last ten 
years, there have been a large number of significant design changes and 
improvements in reliability that reduce the risk of vehicles 
overheating, and thus, the need to remove the radiator cap has been 
reduced. The Alliance stated these changes included:
    a. Incorporation of a reservoir cap (the screw type) that requires 
more than one hand motion (turns) to allow pressure bleed down before 
complete removal.
    b. Incorporation of caps that have brims, baffles, or other 
conveyances that direct escaping coolant/steam away from the hand of a 
person removing the cap.
    c. Incorporation of de-gas reservoir (without separate radiator 
caps) that vent air first--not liquid and reduce entrained air in 
coolant, maintaining cooling capability.
    d. Incorporation of a ``limp-home'' cooling function in engine 
electronics to keep customers from getting ``stranded'' by overheating 
or coolant loss (reduces need for customers to have to remove any 
pressurized caps).
    e. Reduction in some vehicles of maximum cooling system operating 
temperatures under extreme conditions such as trailer towing, extended 
idling, and when traversing significant grades.
    f. Changes in cooling system design and materials to reduce 
incidence of overheating (e.g., long life coolants, long life hoses, 
corrosion resistant aluminum engine components and radiators, and 
translucent reservoirs to allow visual checking without opening 
system).
    (2) NHTSA cost estimate in the NPRM is too low: The Ludtke & 
Associates design of a prototype pressure-locking

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radiator cap (used as the basis for NHTSA's cost estimate) is deficient 
because its design does not contain all the required functions 
necessary to operate with current coolant systems.
    (3) NHTSA is unable to demonstrate in the field that the technology 
proposed in the NPRM will work in a real world environment since there 
are no commercially available pressure-locking caps.
    (4) The proposal incorrectly assumes that a pressure-locking system 
is the only technology that will address this issue and, as such, is 
too design restrictive and will preclude other suitable technologies.

III. Decision To Withdraw Rulemaking

    After carefully considering the comments, we have decided to 
withdraw this rulemaking. After reviewing the available information, we 
believe the potential safety benefits associated with the proposed 
requirement are limited and uncertain.
    In July 2000, the CPSC began routinely to collect data on injuries 
involving motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment and made this 
information available through its website. NHTSA was able to search the 
CPSC NEISS database for scald injuries associated with the removal of a 
radiator cap. NHTSA used the word ``radiator'' and other key words to 
search the text fields in NEISS for radiator cap related scald injuries 
that occurred between January 1, 2001 and December 31, 2001. This 
search produced a national projection for the year 2001 of 4,949 
persons injured in scalding incidents involving motor vehicle radiator 
caps. The vast majority of patients were treated and released.
    The data were acquired from a representative sampling of scald 
injuries reported in emergency rooms monitored by NEISS. When the 
injury data were compared to the radiator cap related scald injuries 
estimated through the NHTSA/CPSC 1993/1994 data collection effort 
(15,118 injuries), the year 2001 injury data (4,949 injuries) suggest 
that the scald injury rate for a 12 month-period decreased by 
approximately 66% since September 1994.
    The CPSC 2001 injury data do not include information on the make, 
year of manufacture, or model year of the motor vehicles involved or 
information on the type of cap involved. NHTSA is thus unable to 
analyze in detail whether this reduction in documented injuries 
resulted from changes made to motor vehicle cooling systems as 
suggested by the automobile manufacturers in their comments on this 
rulemaking. However, the agency would expect that the various changes 
cited by the manufacturers to provide benefits in this area.
    NHTSA notes that the CPSC year 2001 data contained cases that were 
listed as a scald or burn injury, but the text field of the NEISS file 
does not contain enough information to determine whether the injury is 
associated with a radiator cap. It is possible that our year 2001 data 
underestimates the number of scald injuries related to radiator caps. 
It is clear, however, that vehicle manufacturers have made improvements 
in the design and reliability of motor vehicle cooling systems and, at 
the same time, the documented injuries associated with radiator caps 
have declined.
    We also believe, based on our review of the comments, that the 
proposed rule may be unnecessarily design-restrictive, i.e., there may 
be alternatives to pressure-locking caps that would meet the agency's 
safety objectives in this area but could not be used to comply with the 
proposed requirement. If we were planning to proceed further with this 
rulemaking, this is an issue that we would need to evaluate carefully.
    Accordingly, in light of the substantial reduction in the number of 
cases of radiator cap related scald injuries, the resources that would 
be needed to further refine the requirements proposed in the NPRM, and 
limited and uncertain benefits, the agency has decided to withdraw this 
rulemaking. NHTSA can revisit the issue of radiator cap scalding, if 
sufficient grounds exist in the future.

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

    Issued on: June 16, 2004.
Stephen R. Kratzke,
Associate Administrator for Rulemaking.
[FR Doc. 04-14074 Filed 6-21-04; 8:45 am]
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