On December 30, 2005 NHTSA published a NPRM in the Federal Register, [Docket No. NHTSA-2005-22093], to announce their proposal of the long awaited administrative re-write of FMVSS 108.
NHTSA states that this proposal has totally re-organized the text so that the regulatory requirements will be much easier to find and understand. This re-write also incorporates, within the regulation, many of the meaningful interpretations that have been provided over the years. In addition NHTSA says that many of the hard to find historic SAE J-reports have been incorporated into the text to better facilitate interested parties finding and having access to them. Current FMVSS 108 references approximately 35 different SAE documents in nearly 100 separate instances. The proposed re-write references only eight SAE documents, which NHTSA believes will not be commonly used by most regulated parties.
Over approximately 40 years, the result of various safety initiatives and technological advances in vehicle lighting, numerous amendments to the regulatory text have left the regulation unwieldy and unnecessarily complicated. In addition, the regulation's provisions have been interpreted frequently by the NHTSA over the past several decades in response to interpretation request letters. This document proposes to amend the regulation by reorganizing the regulatory text so that it provides a more straight-forward and logical presentation of the applicable regulatory requirements, which includes the agency's interpretation of the existing requirements. NHTSA stresses that this proposal would not impose any new substantive requirements on manufacturers.
The agency is proposing to amend Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 108, "Lamps, Reflective Devices, and Associated Equipment", by reorganizing the regulatory text and directly importing requirements from historical, but still applicable, Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) standards currently incorporated by reference into the regulation. The main objective of this re-write is to increase clarity by:
- Making requirements easier to find and comprehend;
- Presenting performance requirements and test procedures together through the inclusion of relevant provisions of third-party documents (currently incorporated by reference) directly into the regulatory text of the regulation; and
- Updating Regulation No. 108 to reflect letters of interpretation.
NHTSA states that the re-write of FMVSS No. 108 is considered to be administrative in nature because the regulation's existing requirements and obligations are not being increased, decreased, or substantively modified. Accordingly, NHTSA states that costs associated with manufacturer compliance with FMVSS 108 are not expected to change as a result of this regulatory action.
NHTSA is requesting all interested parties to carefully read and understand this proposal and to submit their comments early enough to ensure that Docket Management receives them not later than March 30, 2006.
USA Subscribers will find the text of this Proposal on the February 2006 InterRegs CD. Due to the lengthy text and several re-written tables supporting this proposal, it has not been possible to reformat and include Appendices A and B in time to meet production schedules and these will now be included on the March 2006 CD. Subscribers who require this information urgently are invited to contact us by email. Non-subscribers will be able to purchase and download the complete document on selectregs.com from Monday 6th February 2006.