Transport i bezpieczeństwo · 5/13/1998

Rulemaking Procedures

This final rule reaffirms the agency's policy of focusing its international harmonization activities on identifying and adopting those foreign vehicle safety standards that clearly reflect best practices, i.e., that require significantly higher levels of safety performance than the counterpart U.S. standards. This final rule also announces the agency's policy regarding those instances in which the agency's comparison of standards indicates that the safety performance required by a foreign standard is not significantly higher, but is still better than or at least as good as that required by the counterpart U.S. standard. To aid in implementing these policies, this final rule amends the agency's regulation concerning rulemaking procedures to set forth the process that the agency will use in comparing U.S. and foreign vehicle safety standards and in determining what rulemaking response, if any, is appropriate. The agency will assess whether the safety performance of vehicles or equipment manufactured under the foreign standard is better than or at least functionally equivalent to that of vehicles or equipment manufactured under the U.S. standard, i.e., whether the vehicles or equipmen