Interpretation ID: aiam2140
Cal Light Company
50 Oak Court
Walnut Creek
CA 94596;
Dear Mr. MacEachern: This is in reply to your letter of November 4, 1975, telling us of you wish to market a rectangular sealed beam headlamp unit for motorcycles. In your opinion this might be prohibited by 'federal inaction to update FMVSS-108 SAE J584 April 1964 to the amended SAE J584b December 1971.'; Substitution of J584b would not be a solution to your problem since i does not specify a Type 2A sealed-beam headlamp unit as one of the approved options. There would have to be both a substitution of J584b and a provision in Standard No. 108 itself that either a Type 2 or Type 2A sealed beam headlamp unit may be used. I enclose a copy of a regulation that tells how you may submit a petition for rulemaking for an appropriate amendment to Standard No. 108.; You also enclosed a letter from the California Highway Patrol statin that it was amending its regulations; >>>'to allow the use of motorcycle headlamps which comply with the typ 2 lower beam photometric requirements and the motorcycle upper beam requirements, though we are not sure what position NHTSA would take upon this interpretation'.<<<; Such action by the California Highway Patrol appears precluded b Section 103(d) of the National Traffic and Motor vehicle Safety Act of 1966. The effect of this section is to prohibit California from having a State lighting standard that differs in any way from Standard No. 108. Since the Federal lighting standard does not allow the California amendment, the State regulation appears invalid.; Notwithstanding California's 'approval' of your headlamp, your sale o this rectangular headlamp for motorcycles as either original equipment or as replacement equipment (but only for motorcycles manufactured on or after January 1, 1972) would appear to be a violation of Section 108(a) (1) (A) of the Act, unless and until Standard No. 108 is amended. There is a maximum penalty of $1,000 for each violation, up to $800,000 for any related series of violations.; Yours truly, Richard B. Dyson, Assistant Chief Counsel