[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