Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; School Bus Body Joint Strength

This rule amends Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 221, School Bus Body Joint Strength (49 CFR 571.221), which requires school bus body panel joints to be capable of holding the body panel to the member to which it is joined when subjected to a force of 60 percent of the tensile strength of the weakest joined body panel. Currently, the standard applies only to school buses with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) greater than 10,000 pounds. This rule extends the applicability of the standard to school buses with a GVWR of 10,000 pounds or less, narrows an exclusion of maintenance access panels from the requirements of the standard, and revises testing requirements. This rule ensures that children are provided equivalent levels of protection against joint separation in small as well as large school buses. Since a larger proportion of small school buses than of large school buses are lift-equipped to transport mobility impaired students compared to large buses, this rule particularly enhances the safety of mobility impaired children.