[Federal Register Volume 61, Number 17 (Thursday, January 25, 1996)] [Notices] [Pages 2327-2329] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 96-1229] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Denial of Motor Vehicle Defect Petition From Douglas Bell This notice sets forth the reasons for denial of a petition submitted to the NHTSA under 49 U.S.C. 30162(a)(2) (formerly section 124 of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, as amended). In August 1995, Mr. Philip G. Vermont, an attorney in Pleasonton, California, submitted a petition to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), on behalf of petitioner Mr. Douglas Bell, and others. The petitioner requested that NHTSA order the recall of certain motor vehicles produced by the Nissan Motor Company, Limited (Nissan) for remedy of an alleged safety-related defect regarding the crashworthiness of those [[Page 2328]] vehicles. Specifically, Mr. Bell alleged that the floor pans of the occupant compartments in 1983 through 1986 model Nissan Pulsar vehicles are defective in that they provide inadequate resistance to crush and deformation during a frontal crash. To remedy this alleged defect, the petitioner requested that NHTSA issue an order requiring Nissan to: a. repurchase, repair, recall or strengthen the floor pans of all Pulsar model vehicles currently in use in the United States; b. reimburse the owners of the subject Pulsar vehicles for all damages sustained by their vehicles and other property as a result of the alleged defect; and c. notify all owners of the subject Pulsar models of the existence of the alleged defect. The petitioner furnished materials to establish the existence of the alleged defect and its potential safety related consequences, including the following:A copy of a decision issued by the Court of Appeals, 4th Circuit, State of Louisiana, in the matter of Page v. Gilbert, (1992). The documentation describes an incident that occurred in January 1983 when a vehicle crashed head-on into a 1983 Pulsar NX. The record supports the conclusion that both vehicles were traveling between 35 and 45 miles per hour (mph). A jury found for the plaintiff and attributed 70 percent of the plaintiff's injuries to the alleged design defect in the floor pan of the Pulsar vehicle. The court stated that the Pulsar was defective because ``. . . . the longitudinal member (beam) under the driver's seat and in the instant crash buckled up under the driver's seat thrusting the driver forward and up into the dash.'' The testimony of Dr. Ronald Houston, a mechanical engineer, who stated in the Page case that the force of the accident caused compression of the occupant area, impacting the plaintiff's knees and pelvic area and causing serious injuries. A description of a collision that occurred in July 1987, involving a 1983 Pulsar being driven by Mr. Max Brown, which crashed head-on into a 1979 Lincoln vehicle. Occupants of the Pulsar sustained serious injuries. This incident was also evaluated by Dr. Ronald Houston, who concluded that the Pulsar had experienced a barrier equivalent velocity change of approximately 25 mph. A discussion involving a third frontal collision, in this instance a 1985 Pulsar operated by Shelley Metcalf. The petitioner alleges that this incident resulted in the same type of passenger compartment deformation and collapse as had occurred in the Page and Brown cases. An allegation involving the use of defective cold rolled steel in the manufacture of the Pulsar floor pan. The petitioner alleges that the design of the floor pan exposes the front passenger to a greater risk of injury than the driver in the event of a frontal collision. The petitioner also alleges that a frontal vehicle structure used by Cornell Aeronautical Laboratories in a 1972 crash test of an Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESV) for NHTSA was a prototype for the structure subsequently used in the Pulsar production, and that the structure and floorpan had performed poorly in those crash tests. By letter dated October 24, 1995, Nissan submitted to this agency an unsolicited response to the subject petition. Nissan's submittal provided certain details regarding the design and structure of the Pulsar, as well as extensive analysis of the comparative crash test performance of the Pulsar with that of several other vehicles in a variety of size, weight and use categories. In addition, these other significant issues were raised by Nissan: Except for those cited in the subject petition, no other accidents, injuries, and/or lawsuits are known to Nissan in which the Pulsar floor pan was alleged to have been defective. Estimates of crash severity in the lawsuits cited were issues of disagreement. It appears, however, that the Pulsar's velocity change (delta v) in the Page case may have been as high as 40 mph, and on the order of 35 mph in the Brown case. In the Metcalf case, the Pulsar's speed was unknown when it crashed into a second vehicle reportedly traveling at 40-45 mph. The frontal vehicle structure used in ESV tests in 1972 was not a prototype structure for the Pulsar production models. The subject Pulsar vehicle is a subcompact, front-wheel drive vehicle, and was first sold in the United States in the 1983 model year. It has a published curb weight of 1850 to 2050 pounds, and was produced as a two-door coupe, a three-door hatchback, and a five-door hatchback. Approximately 200,000 of these vehicles were sold during the model years in question. The Pulsar's body structure is of contemporary monocoque, or unibody, design. Consistent with the basic design philosophy applied throughout the motor vehicle industry, the Pulsar body structure is designed to deform and crush to absorb the energy of a collision and to protect its occupants against the transfer of crash forces that would otherwise result in more severe injuries. In a frontal crash, impact forces are absorbed by several components of the body structure, including the frame, roof pillars, the body and roof sills, structural cross members, and the floor pan. In addition, the hood, and front and side body panels are all designed to crush to absorb impact energy, while maintaining to the extent possible, the integrity and volume of the occupant compartment. The degree to which the crash energy can be effectively managed depends upon the severity of the impact. Nissan challenged the petitioner's statement regarding the use of cold rolled steel for fabrication of Pulsar floor pans, and stated that it is common industry practice to do so. On the matter of deformation and crush of the vehicle structure during impact, Nissan pointed out that the use of a body structure that is so rigid that it does not crush could actually pose a greater risk to the safety of vehicle occupants during a collision. By absorbing less of the crash energy, a more rigid body structure would subject the vehicle occupants to greater risk of injury during the higher decelerations. Nissan argued that the floor pan of the vehicle represents one component of a complete structure and that to consider deformation of the floor pan alone during impact is meaningless. NHTSA agrees with that assessment. Information and data to conduct such an evaluation are available through crash test results from Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) compliance tests, the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) tests, and accident data files maintained by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis (NCSA). In the Page case, the court noted that there was no dispute that the Pulsar had passed the FMVSS's in effect at the time of its production. Nissan reviewed this issue further and presented data that compared the FMVSS No. 204 (Steering Control Rearward Displacement) compliance test results of the 1983 Pulsar with those of nineteen other vehicles of various size and weight categories. These 30 mph frontal, fixed-barrier tests, which included measurement of front-end crush and maximum longitudinal decelerations (g's) at two points on the vehicle floor, disclosed no indication of unusually poor performance of the Pulsar as compared to that of the other vehicles. As such, these test results do not suggest that the Pulsar's unibody structure, including the floor pan, deform in such a way so as to pose an unusual risk of injury to its occupants. The Nissan Pulsar of the model years under consideration has also been subjected to NCAP tests which involved frontal, fixed-barrier crashes at 35 mph while carrying instrumented anthropomorphic dummies. NCAP tests are significantly more severe than the barrier tests performed to determine compliance with FMVSS No. 208 (Occupant Crash Protection). The NCAP test requires absorption of 36 percent more crash energy than the 30 mph compliance test, and produces an average total instantaneous change in velocity of the vehicle (delta v) of approximately 40 mph (including vehicle rebound from the barrier). NCAP test results for a 1983 Nissan Pulsar were compared to similar results from the tests of a 1984 Toyota Corolla, a [[Page 2329]] 1984 Honda Civic, and a 1984 Toyota Tercel. These vehicles are considered peers since they are of comparable size, weight, and utility. In reviewing the NCAP results, which provide measurements of Head Injury Criteria (HIC), chest g's, and femur loads for both driver and front passenger dummies, there is no indication that the Pulsar's performance presents a greater risk of injury or fatality to its occupants than that of any of the peer vehicles. The validity of NCAP test data in assessing real-world crashworthiness of motor vehicles is well established. NHTSA's December 1993 report to the Congress on this matter presents the results of detailed analyses that show high correlations between NCAP test results and real world accident data contained in the NCSA's individual state accident investigation files, the National Accident Sampling System (NASS) data files, and the Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS) files. FARS data accumulated from 1983 through 1994 for the 1983-1986 Pulsar were reviewed and compared with similar data for the Honda Civic/CRX and Toyota Corolla of the same model years. During that period, occupants of 1983-1986 model year Pulsars sustained a total of 219 fatal injuries in head-on crashes for the cumulative population of 196,600 vehicles. Of these, 72 percent (157 fatalities) were sustained by the driver, and the remaining 28 percent (62 fatalities) were sustained by passengers, in most cases seated in the right front position. These data do not support the petitioner's claim that the design of the Pulsar floor pan exposes the front passenger to a greater fatality risk than the driver. Fatality rates for the Pulsar, Corolla, and Civic/CRX models were normalized for the cumulative numbers of these vehicles in service, and then compared. This revealed that 544 fatalities were sustained by occupants of the population of 621,800 Corolla models, and for the total population of 743,400 Honda Civic/CRX, 759 fatalities were sustained. These data were analyzed by comparing the respective numbers of fatalities per 100,000 vehicles in service for each model, for each year of exposure. Although the Pulsar demonstrated a slightly higher average rate (10.86) for the twelve exposure years than the Civic/CRX (9.49) or the Corolla (8.53), there was no pattern of a consistently higher annual rate for any of the three models. These data do not show that occupants of Pulsar vehicles have been exposed to a greater historical risk of fatality than occupants of these peer vehicle models. In consideration of the foregoing, NHTSA has concluded that there is no reasonable possibility that an order for the notification and remedy of a safety-related defect would be issued at the conclusion of an investigation into the performance of the floor pan installed in the subject vehicles. Based on its analysis of pertinent data, NHTSA could find no support for the petition's contention that a safety-related defect exists by virtue of the design or performance of this component. Further commitment of agency resources to examine this issue does not appear to be warranted. The petition is therefore denied. Authority: 49 U.S.C. 30162(a); delegations of authority at 49 CFR 1.50 and 501.8) Issued on: January 22, 1996. Michael B. Brownlee, Associate Administrator for Safety Assurance. [FR Doc. 96-1229 Filed 1-24-96; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 4910-59-P