Agency Information Collection Activities; Notice and Request for Comment; Reporting of Information and Documents About Potential Defects

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>National Highway Traffic Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. NHTSA-2024-0055]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Agency Information Collection Activities; Notice and Request for Comment; Reporting of Information and Documents About Potential Defects</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice and request for comments on an extension without change of a currently approved collection of information. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NHTSA invites public comments about our intention to request approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for an extension without change of a currently approved information collection. Before a Federal agency can collect certain information from the public, it must receive approval from OMB. Under procedures established by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, before seeking OMB approval, Federal agencies must solicit public comment on proposed collections of information, including extensions and reinstatement of previously approved collections. <E T="03">This document describes a collection of information for which NHTSA intends to seek OMB approval on the reporting of information and documents about potential safety defects.</E> </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be submitted on or before November 19, 2024. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by the Docket No. NHTSA-2024-0055 through any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Submissions:</E> Go to the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Fax:</E> (202) 493-2251. • <E T="03">Mail or Hand Delivery:</E> Docket Management, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except on Federal holidays. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions must include the agency name and docket number for this notice. Note that all comments received will be posted without change to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. Please see the Privacy Act heading below. <E T="03">Privacy Act:</E> Anyone can search for the electronic form of all comments received into any of our dockets by the name of the individual submitting the comment (or signing the comment if submitted on behalf of an association, business, labor union, etc.). You may review DOT's complete Privacy Act Statement in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> published on April 11, 2000 (65 FR 19477-78) or you may visit <E T="03">https://www.transportation.gov/privacy.</E> <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> or the street address listed above. Follow the online instructions for accessing the dockets via the internet. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For additional information or access to background documents, contact Jeff Quandt, Trends Analysis Division (NEF-108), Room W48-312, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1200 New Jersey Ave., Washington, DC 20590. Telephone (202) 366-5207. Please identify the relevant collection of information by referring to its OMB Control Number. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), before an agency submits a proposed collection of information to OMB for approval, it must first publish a document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> providing a 60-day comment period and otherwise consult with members of the public and affected agencies concerning each proposed collection of information. The OMB has promulgated regulations describing what must be included in such a document. Under OMB's regulation (at 5 CFR 1320.8(d)), an agency must ask for public comment on the following: (a) whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether the information will have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of information, including the validity of the methodology and assumptions used; (c) how to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and (d) how to minimize the burden of the collection of information on those who are to respond, including the use of appropriate automated, electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or other forms of information technology, <E T="03">e.g.</E> permitting electronic submission of responses. In compliance with these requirements, NHTSA asks for public comments on the following proposed collection of information for which the agency is seeking approval from OMB. <E T="03">Title:</E> Reporting of Information and Documents About Potential Defects. <E T="03">OMB Control:</E> 2127-0616. <E T="03">Type of Request:</E> Extension without change of a currently approved information collection. <E T="03">Type of Review Requested:</E> Regular. <E T="03">Requested Expiration Date of Approval:</E> 3 years from date of approval. <E T="03">Summary of the Collection of Information:</E> This notice requests comment on NHTSA's intention to seek approval from OMB to extend without change a currently approved collection of information, OMB No. 2127-0616, covering requirements in 49 CFR 579, <E T="03">Reporting of Information and Communications about Potential Defects.</E> Part 579 implements, and addresses with more specificity, requirements from the Transportation Recall Enhancement Accountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act (Pub. L. 106-414), which was enacted on November 1, 2000, and is codified at 49 U.S.C. 30166. The purpose of part 579 is to enhance motor vehicle safety by specifying information and documents that manufacturers of motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment must provide to NHTSA concerning possible safety-related defects and non-compliances in their products, including the reporting of safety recalls and other safety campaigns the manufacturers conduct outside the United States. Under part 579, there are three categories of reporting requirements: (1) Requirements at § 579.5 to submit notices, bulletins, customer satisfaction campaigns, consumer advisories, and other communications (found in subpart A of part 579); (2) requirements at § 579.11 to submit information related to safety recalls and other safety campaigns in the foreign countries (found in subpart B of part 579); and (3) requirements at §§ 579.21-28 to submit Early Warning Information (found in subpart C of part 579). The Early Warning Reporting (EWR) requirements (U.S.C. 30166(m); 49 CFR part 579, subpart C) specify that manufacturers of motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment must submit to NHTSA information periodically or upon NHTSA's request, that includes claims or notices for incidents involving death or injury; numbers of property damage claims, consumer complaints, warranty claims, and field reports; copies of field reports; and other information that may assist NHTSA in identifying potential safety-related defects. The intent of this information collection is to provide early warning of such potential safety-related defects to NHTSA. <E T="03">Description of the Need for the Information and Proposed Use of the Information:</E> The information required under 49 U.S.C. 30166 and 49 CFR part 579 is used by NHTSA to promptly identify potential safety-related defects in motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment in the United States. When a trend in incidents arising from a potentially safety-related defect is discovered, NHTSA relies on this information, along with other agency data, to determine whether to open a defect investigation. <E T="03">Affected Public:</E> Manufacturers of motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment. <E T="03">Estimated Number of Respondents:</E> NHTSA receives part 579 submissions from approximately 297 manufacturers per year. We estimate that there will be a total of 297 respondents per year to this extension of the OMB No. 2127-0616, instead of the previously estimated 337 respondents per year. <E T="03">Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours:</E> When this approved information collection was last renewed in April 2022, NHTSA estimated the annual burden associated with this collection to be 53,810 burden hours. NHTSA is updating these estimates to better align with the current volume of submissions. NHTSA now estimates the annual burden hours associated with this collection to be 54,088 hours based on analysis of EWR reporting data from the 2021 through 2023 reporting years. NHTSA estimated the burdens associated with this collection by calculating the burden associated with submitting information under each subpart of part 579. In addition to these burdens, NHTSA also estimates that manufacturers will incur computer maintenance burden hours, which are estimated on a per manufacturer basis. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Requirements Under Part 579, Subpart A</HD> The first component of this collection request covers the requirements found in part 579 subpart A, § 579.5, Notices, bulletins, customer satisfaction campaigns, consumer advisories, and other communications. Section 579.5 requires manufacturers to furnish (1) a copy of all notices, bulletins, and other communications sent to more than one manufacturer, distributor, dealer, lessor, lessee, owner, or purchaser, in the United States, ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 50k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━