19716 Federal Register / Vol. 60, No. 76 / Thursday, April 20, 1995 / Proposed Rules

when there is a critical requirement that

the delivery date be met and an actual

cost cannot be established for the loss to

the Government resulting from late

delivery.

570.704 Use of provisions and clauses.

The omission of any provision or

clause when its prescription requires its

use constitutes a deviation which must

be approved under part 501, subpart

501.4. Approval may be granted to

deviate from provisions or clauses that

are mandated by statute (e.g., (GSAR) 48

CFR 552.203–5, Covenant Against

Contingent Fees, (FAR) 48 CFR 52.215–

1, Examination of Records by the

Comptroller General, etc.) in order to

modify the language of the provision or

clause. However, the statutory

provisions and clauses may not be

omitted from the SPO unless the statute

provides for waiving the requirements

of the provision or clause.

53. Section 570.801 is revised to read

as follows:

570.801 Standard forms.

Standard Form 2, U.S. Government

Lease for Real Property, should be used

to award leases unless GSA Form 3626

is used. The reference to the Standard

Form 2–A in paragraph 7 must be

deleted.

54. Section 570.802 is revised to read

as follows:

570.802 GSA forms.

(a) The GSA Form 3626, U.S.

Government Lease for Real Property

(Short Form), may be used to award

leases when the simplified leasing

procedures in 570.2 are used or when

the Contracting Officer finds its use to

be advantageous.

(b) GSA Form 276, Supplemental

Lease Agreement, should be used to

amend existing leases that involve the

acquisition of additional space or partial

release of space, revisions in the terms

of a lease, restoration settlements, and

alterations.

(c) GSA Form 1364, Proposal To Lease

Space To The United States of America,

may be used to obtain offers from

prospective offerors.

Dated: March 27, 1995.

Ida M. Ustad,

Associate Administrator for Acquisition

Policy.

[FR Doc. 95–9650 Filed 4–19–95; 8:45am]

BILLING CODE 6820–61–M

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

National Highway Traffic Safety

Administration

49 CFR Part 571

Denial of Petition for Rulemaking;

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety

Standards

AGENCY: National Highway Traffic

Safety Administration (NHTSA),

Department of Transportation.

ACTION: Denial of petition for

rulemaking.

SUMMARY: This document denies Mr.

John Chevedden’s petition for

rulemaking to specify the license plate

mounting location of certain cars and

light trucks. NHTSA’s analysis of

accident data indicates that requiring

cars and light trucks with off-center

front license plates to have those plates

on the driver’s side would not have

more than a negligible effect on the

occurrence of accidents or fatalities.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr.

Richard Van Iderstine, Office of

Rulemaking, NHTSA, 400 Seventh

Street, SW, Washington, DC 20590. Mr.

Van Iderstine’s telephone number is:

(202) 366–5275.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: By letter

dated October 12, 1994, Mr. John

Chevedden petitioned the agency to

issue a rule applicable to new cars and

light trucks with off-center front license

plates. Mr. Chevedden asked NHTSA to

mandate that those license plates be

positioned on the driver’s side. Mr.

Chevedden stated that the rulemaking

was needed because the chances of a

vehicle’s becoming involved in an

accident at night or other times of

reduced ambient light increase when

the vehicle’s headlights are off due to

the driver’s forgetfulness or to

mechanical problems. Mr. Chevedden

argued that the chances of such a

vehicle’s becoming involved in an

accident would be reduced if the

vehicle’s off-center front license plate

were mounted on the driver’s side. In

that location, today’s license plates,

which typically are reflectorized, would

reflect the light from the headlights of

oncoming traffic. This would indicate

how close the vehicle is to opposing

traffic. Mr. Chevedden argued that

license plates mounted on the driver’s

side could also make parked vehicles

more visible and lessen the possibility

of collisions. Mr. Chevedden did not

provide any analysis of the potential

benefits of his requested rule.

For the following reasons, NHTSA

believes that the safety benefits of

specifying license plate location would

be negligible. In attempting to quantify

potential benefits of specifying license

plate location, NHTSA reviewed the

laws of States that mandate both front

license plates and reflective license

plates and reviewed the numbers and

circumstances of fatal accidents that

occurred in all states in 1992. The

chance of achieving any benefits

through mandating the location of front

plates would depend on the

simultaneous occurrence of a large

number of events, several of which have

a low probability of occurring even

independently, much less in

combination. Those events, and their

probability of occurring individually in

any accident, are set forth below, based

on 1992 data:

Fatal accidents in which a vehicle is

likely to have a reflective front

plate—

.47 or 47 percent

Fatal accidents during non-daylight

conditions—

.54 or 54 percent

Fatal accidents involving a head-on or

side-swipe collision—

Head-on=.017 or 1.7 percent

Side-swipe=.05 or 5 percent

For a total of .067 or 6.7 percent

Vehicles having a passenger’s side

offset front license plate assumed to be

in fatal accidents—

.01 or 1 percent

Motor vehicles with no front lamps

turned on or having complete front

lamp failure assumed to be in fatal

accidents—

.01 or 1 percent

Fatal accidents involving parked

vehicles—

.066 or 6.6 percent

To assess the impact of mandating

that offset front license plates be located

on the driver’s side, the agency

determined the probability of all of the

above events occurring in the same

accident by multiplying the probability

of each of the first three events

occurring individually in a fatal

accident by the product of the

probabilities that a fatally involved

vehicle has a front passenger’s side

license plate and that a fatally involved

vehicle will have no lights on while

being driven. The agency believes that

the assumption that 1 percent of

vehicles are operated without lights in

the dark is very optimistic to the

computation of potential benefits.

NHTSA presumes that American

drivers tend toward the right lane of the

roadway while driving, regardless of the

presence or absence of lane markings.

Therefore, accidents with parked

vehicles generally concern vehicles
Federal Register / Vol. 60, No. 76 / Thursday, April 20, 1995 / Proposed Rules 19717

parked in the right lane or on the right

shoulder. Most vehicles in the right lane

or shoulder would have their rear end

facing oncoming vehicles, and the

location of a front license plate would

be irrelevant to the occurrence of a rear

end collision. In the instances in which

the parked vehicle is facing right lane

traffic, a passenger’s side, rather than

driver’s side, front license plate would

be in the more favorable position to

mark the extreme intrusion of the

parked vehicle into the roadway. If the

agency were to include in its

computations collisions with parked

vehicles located in the right lane or on

the right shoulder and facing oncoming

traffic, that inclusion would reduce the

potential benefits of the requested

rulemaking. This would occur because

there would be a net liability instead of

a net benefit for parked cars, according

to the petitioner’s logic, if their front

license plates were moved from the

passenger’s side to the driver’s side.

Therefore, parked vehicles have been

omitted from the computation of

hypothetical maximum benefits. Thus,

the combined probability of the above

events is:

.47×.54×.067×.01×.01=.0000017

Next, NHTSA determined the number

of fatalities that might have occurred in

accidents involving that particular

combination of events by multiplying

the probability of that combination of

events by the total number of occupant

fatalities per year.

.0000017×39,235=0.067 relevant

fatalities/year

Finally, to determine the number of

those fatalities that might be prevented

by mandating that off-center front

license plates be mounted on the

driver’s side, the agency multiplied the

number of relevant fatalities by a figure

representing an assumed level of

accident preventing effectiveness for

that placement of the front license plate.

For the purposes of analysis, the agency

has used a very optimistic figure of 2.5

percent.

The trailer conspicuity achieved

about 25 percent effectiveness for the

rear treatment in its fleet study. Since

the light reflected from license plates is

about 2.6 percent of that from the rear

of a trailer with conspicuity treatment,

and the closure rate of vehicles in

Chevedden’s case is at least twice that

of trailer conspicuity cases, a very low

effectiveness should be assumed. Based

on the foregoing, the agency assumes

that the effectiveness of the off-center

front reflectorized license plate is onetenth that of rear trailer conspicuity, or

2.5 percent. The estimate of the benefit

from the Chevedden proposal is:

0.067×0.025=.0017 fatalities prevented/

year.

Based on the above analysis, NHTSA

estimates that if it were to specify that

those vehicles with off-center front

license plates have their front plates

located on the driver’s side, the number

of lives saved would not exceed one life

for every 588 years.

The agency also considered the

possibility of obtaining benefits by

applying Chevedden’s suggestion so that

it would affect fatalities involving

vehicles lacking any front license plate

(16,977) and fatalities involving vehicles

having front plates that are not reflective

(22,254). The agency is powerless,

however, to mandate that vehicles have

front plates or that plates be reflective.

Therefore, the agency cannot address

those fatalities by expanding the scope

of Chevedden’s petition.

The agency disagrees with Mr.

Chevedden’s suggestion that adopting

his requested rule would involve ‘‘no

cost.’’ Specifying license plate mounting

location would impose redesign and

retooling costs associated with

relocating mounting holes, bumper

fascia, and plate holders.

In accordance with 49 CFR part 552,

this completes the agency’s technical

review of the petition. The agency has

concluded that there is no reasonable

possibility that the amendment

requested by the petitioner would be

issued at the conclusion of a rulemaking

proceeding. Accordingly, it denies Mr.

Chevedden’s petition.

Authority: 49 U.S.C. 30103, 30162;

delegation of authority at 49 CFR 1.50 and

501.8.

Issued on: April 17, 1995.

Barry Felrice,

Associate Administrator for Safety

Performance Standards.

[FR Doc. 95–9840 Filed 4–19–95; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 4910–59–P