55562 Federal Register / Vol. 62, No. 207 / Monday, October 27, 1997 / Proposed Rules

List of Subjects in 47 CFR Part 73

Radio broadcasting.

Federal Communications Commission.

John A. Karousos,

Chief, Allocations Branch, Policy and Rules

Division, Mass Media Bureau.

[FR Doc. 97–28357 Filed 10–24–97; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 6712–01–U

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

National Highway Traffic Safety

Administration

49 CFR Part 571

[Docket No. 96–41, Notice 02]

RIN AG–38

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety

Standards; Lamps, Reflective Devices

and Associated Equipment

AGENCY: National Highway Traffic

Safety Administration (NHTSA), DOT.

ACTION: Request for comments;

reopening of comment period.

SUMMARY: This document reopens the

comment period for a request for

comments published December 13,

1996, regarding the potential value of

several auxiliary signal lamps in

addition to those required by Federal

Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 108.

One of the commenters provided

NHTSA with a field study of the

effectiveness of an ‘‘advance brake

warning system’’ (ABWS), one of the

auxiliary signal lamps on which

comments were requested. NHTSA

believes that this field study is a

significant piece of evidence in reaching

any decision about the merits of ABWS.

However, this study only became

available just before the comment

period closed. Accordingly, the only

commenters that addressed this field

study were the two commenters who

filed late comments, as well as the

commenter that provided the field

study.

The purpose of this document is to

make the public aware of the field study

and to invite comments and analysis of

the field study. To facilitate such

comments and analysis from the public,

NHTSA is noting some questions and

issues the agency has identified in its

review and analysis of the field study.

The comment period is reopened for an

additional 30 days.

DATES: Comments must be received by

NHTSA no later than November 26,

1997.

ADDRESSES: Comments should refer to

Docket No. 96–41, Notice 2, and be

submitted to: Docket Section, Room

5109, 400 Seventh Street SW.,

Washington, DC 20590 (Docket hours

are 9:30 am to 4:00 pm Monday through

Friday).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For

technical issues: Richard Van Iderstine,

Office of Crash Avoidance Standards,

NPS–21, telephone (202) 366–5280,

FAX (202) 366–4329.

For legal issues: Taylor Vinson, Office

of Chief Counsel, NCC–20, telephone

(202) 366-5263, FAX (202) 366–3820.

Both may be reached by mail at the

National Highway Traffic Safety

Administration, 400 Seventh Street,

SW., Washington, DC 20590. Comments

should be sent to the Docket Section at

the address given above, not sent or

FAXed to these people.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On

December 13, 1996, at 61 FR 65510,

NHTSA published a request for

comments on whether NHTSA should

permit several types of auxiliary signal

lamps in addition to those required by

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard

No. 108, Lamps, Reflective Devices and

Associated Equipment (49 CFR

571.108). The agency noted in this

request for comments that these lighting

ideas had been submitted without any

data showing that the concepts would

produce real safety benefits on the

public roads.

One of the signal lamp ideas on which

the agency sought public comment was

an Advance Brake Warning System

(ABWS). At present, vehicles’ stop

lamps are activated when the driver

applies the brakes. ABWS lights the stop

lamps sooner in hard braking than in

normal braking, with the intent of giving

following drivers earlier warning.

ABWS does this by activating the stop

lamps when a driver rapidly removes

his or her foot from the accelerator

pedal, on the assumption that these

rapid removals indicate an intention to

apply the brakes.

The 90-day comment period in which

the public was invited to respond to this

request for comments closed on March

13, 1997. NHTSA has received 27

comments in response to this request for

comments. In one of those comments,

Baran Advanced Technology Ltd.

(Baran), one of the companies seeking to

market ABWS in the United States,

provided NHTSA with a field study

conducted in Israel of the crash

experience of vehicles equipped with

ABWS. Baran’s comment is available to

the public from NHTSA’s public docket

and has been filed as 96–041–N01–014.

This field study differentiates ABWS

from the other signal lamp ideas

discussed in the request for comments,

for which there are still no studies or

other data suggesting their effectiveness.

This field study became available

only during the last week of the 90-day

comment period. Because of this, only

three of the 27 comments addressed this

Israeli field study—the commenter that

submitted the study and two

organizations that filed comments well

after the comment closing date. Because

this field study is important in

evaluating the merits of ABWS, the

agency wants to make the public aware

of this field study and ask for public

review and comment on the study to

help NHTSA assess the merits of ABWS.

NHTSA has reviewed and analyzed

the Israeli field study. The agency

would like to summarize its

understanding of the study and identify

some areas in which public comment

and additional information might be

helpful. The field study of ABWS

involved 764 Israeli government

vehicles tracked over a two-year period.

Half the vehicles were equipped with

ABWS, the other half were not. The

control group (those vehicles that did

not have ABWS) were matched to the

ABWS-equipped vehicles. That is, each

vehicle in the control group was the

same make, model, and model year as

a vehicle in the ABWS group.

These 764 vehicles were in a total of

881 crashes, 78 of which were crashes

in which the government vehicle was

struck from the rear. Of these 78 rearend crashes, 37 occurred in the vehicle

fleet equipped with ABWS, while 41

crashes occurred in the control group.

After adjusting for the distance driven

by three particular vehicles, the study’s

authors concluded that the rear-end

crash involvement rate of the ABWS

equipped vehicles was 17.6 percent less

than that of the control vehicles. In

addition, these 78 crashes were then

sorted into ‘‘relevant,’’ defined in the

report as ‘‘crashes in which the

government vehicle was struck from

behind while braking or immediately

after braking,’’ and ‘‘irrelevant,’’ defined

in the report as ‘‘crashes in which the

government vehicle was already

stopped for a while, or the driver

reported that (s)he decelerated or braked

gradually rather than abruptly, and/or

the driver of the striking vehicle

testified that he failed to pay attention

to the stopping or stopped vehicle

ahead.’’ Of the 78 rear-end crashes, 26

were classified as ‘‘relevant’’ and the

other 52 were deemed ‘‘irrelevant.’’ The

study concluded that the crash

involvement rate of the ABWS-equipped

vehicles in relevant rear end crashes

was 64 percent less than that of the

control group.
Federal Register / Vol. 62, No. 207 / Monday, October 27, 1997 / Proposed Rules 55563

NHTSA has some concerns about how

closely the ABWS group matched the

control group. The Israeli study

mentions that vehicle attributes (make,

model, and year) were matched

precisely in the ABWS group and the

control group. However, no mention is

made of important vehicle use patterns,

such as the driving environment and the

typical driver. It appears that vehicle

use patterns were not considered, since

no mention was made in the study of

any correlation in these areas.

The report of the Israeli study also

presents apparently conflicting data

regarding one important matching

vehicle attribute, the presence of a

center high-mounted stop lamp

(CHMSL). The report of the Israeli study

states on page 11 that the CHMSL

became mandatory in Israel ‘‘at the end

of 1994, for all 1995 passenger vehicles’’

and that ‘‘94 of the 764 vehicles had

CHMSL.’’ However, on page 6, the

report indicates that 153 vehicles were

1995 and 1996 model years. NHTSA

would like to learn from the authors of

the report how to explain this apparent

inconsistency.

NHTSA also notes that the analysis of

the results appears unusual. The data

collected in the field study showed that

there were 417 crashes for the ABWSequipped vehicles and 464 crashes for

the control group, or 9 percent fewer

crashes for the ABWS group. This 9

percent reduction in crashes for the

ABWS-equipped vehicles was found for:

• All crashes

• Rear-end crashes, and

• Crashes other than rear-end crashes

In other words, the ABWS-equipped

vehicles in this field study were just as

likely to avoid a frontal or side crash as

they were to avoid a rear crash. Since

ABWS would not be visible to the driver

of the other vehicle in a frontal or side

crash, there is no apparent reason to

believe that ABWS would have any

effect on those types of crashes. Thus,

the data from this study do not appear

to show any significant positive effect

for ABWS. However, this simple

analysis, which would be a

conventional starting point for many

analysts, was not reported in the study.

NHTSA would like to learn why the

authors of the report on the Israeli field

study did not include this analysis in

the report. The agency is also interested

in commenters’ views on how much

weight and significance should be given

to the fact that the simplest use of the

data does not indicate any significant

effect for ABWS in rear-end crashes

relative to all other types of crashes.

Before making its analyses of ABWS

effectiveness, the study normalized the

exposure of the ABWS-equipped

vehicles and the control group of

vehicles using just the total miles

traveled and time in service of the

vehicles that had experienced rear

impacts. Again, the standard analytical

approach is to normalize using the total

travel of the subject groups (all ABWSequipped vehicles and all the control

group vehicles), which avoids

introducing any biases in the results.

The agency is concerned that

normalizing only for vehicles in rearend crashes may give an unwarranted

increase in the observed effectiveness of

ABWS. NHTSA would like to learn why

the authors of the study chose not to use

the standard approach and why they

believe their alternative approach

avoids any biases. In addition, the

agency would like commenters’ views

on this technique.

Further, as noted in the study, there

was a large difference in the ‘‘relevant’’

rear-end crashes for the two groups—18

relevant rear-end crashes for the control

group, but only eight relevant rear-end

crashes for the ABWS group. However,

the total rear-end crashes reported were

substantially identical—41 for the

control group and 37 for the ABWS

group. The difference of four crashes in

this sample size is not statistically

significant. Thus, one interpretation of

the data is that ABWS shifts rear-end

crashes from the relevant to the

irrelevant classification without

reducing significantly the number of

rear-end crashes. NHTSA would like

comments on the appropriate

interpretation of the data.

As part of the public review of the

Israeli field study, NHTSA would like to

repeat its previous statements that there

are positive benefits from the current

standardization of vehicle signaling

systems. The current signal from stop

lamps is a uniform, unambiguous signal

that the driver of the vehicle has applied

the brakes. However, the agency has

also indicated that it is conceptually

possible that using a different action to

activate stop lamps or having stop

lamps send different signals might offer

net safety gains. NHTSA will consider

amending Federal Motor Vehicle Safety

Standard No. 108 if it is shown that a

change from the current standardized

vehicle signaling systems would yield a

net safety benefit. The agency would

like commenters to address expressly

whether the Israeli field study is

sufficiently definitive about net positive

safety effects of ABWS that permitting

ABWS can be said to enhance safety

even if it detracts from standardization

of vehicle signaling systems.

On September 9, 1997, Baran also

submitted an article published in the

journal Human Factors that described a

computer simulation study performed to

test the effectiveness of ABWS devices.

The principal author of this article is

also the principal author of the report

on the Israeli field study of ABWS. In

addition, Baran stated that the Czech

Republic now permits ABWS to be

installed on vehicles operating in that

country.

NHTSA is reopening the comment

period for an additional 30 days. The

agency would like commenters to focus

on ABWS and the materials that were

not available for comment during the

previous comment period, most notably

the Israeli field study of ABWS, but also

the Human Factors article. It is not

necessary for commenters to resubmit

views and data provided in previous

comments to Docket No. 96–41, Notice

1.

Authority: 49 U.S.C. 322, 30111, 30115,

30117, and 30166; delegations of authority at

49 CFR 1.50 and 49 CFR 501.8

Issued on: October 22, 1997.

James R. Hackney,

Acting Associate Administrator for Safety

Performance Standards.

[FR Doc. 97–28417 Filed 10–24–97; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 4910–59–P

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Fish and Wildlife Service

50 CFR Part 17

RIN 1018–AB73

Endangered and Threatened Wildlife

and Plants; Notice of Reopening of

Comment Period on Proposed

Endangered Status for the Peninsular

Ranges Population of Desert Bighorn

Sheep

AGENCY: Fish and Wildlife Service,

Interior.

ACTION: Proposed rule, notice of

reopening of comment period.

SUMMARY: The Fish and Wildlife Service

(Service), pursuant to the Endangered

Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act),

provides notice of reopening of the

comment period for the proposed

endangered status for the Peninsular

Ranges population of desert bighorn

sheep (Ovis canadensis). The comment

period has been reopened to acquire

additional information on the status,

distribution, and management of

bighorn sheep in the Peninsular Ranges

of Baja California, Mexico.

DATES: The comment period closes

November 12, 1997. Any comments

received by the closing date will be

considered by the Service.