Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Electronic Stability Control Systems

This document responds to a petition for reconsideration of a September 2008 final rule that made changes to a new Federal motor vehicle safety standard requiring light vehicles to be equipped with electronic stability control systems. In that final rule, the agency stated that it had previously fulfilled the obligations of the United States with respect to initiating rulemaking with respect to the global technical regulation for electronic stability control and had adopted the regulation to the extent appropriate. The petition for reconsideration identified three areas of the present text of the electronic stability control standard that are not, in the petitioner's view, harmonized with the global technical regulation. After considering the petition, the agency is granting the petition in part and amending slightly the test procedures of the standard and is otherwise denying the petition.