Interpretation ID: nht71-2.24

DATE: 04/01/71

FROM: AUTHOR UNAVAILABLE; R. A. Diaz; NHTSA

TO: Good Rumor Corporation

TITLE: FMVSS INTERPRETATION

TEXT: In your letter of March 2 you petitioned for an amendment of S4.5.6 of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 10 which would eliminate the requirement for an outage indicator on vehicles less than 80 inches in overall width equipped with variable-load turn signal flashers.

The Administration has determined that vehicles less than 80 inches in overall width should be provided with a turnsignal outage indication. As a general rule, these vehicles are not subject to the inspections and maintenance that larger vehicles are, and a malfunctioning turn-signal unit is less likely to be discovered in the absence of an outage indication to the driver. Your petition for rulemaking is therefore denied.

The Federal motor vehicle safety standards, however, do not prohibit the use of variable-load flashers as replacement equipment for fixed-load flashers.