|
|
|
DEPARTMENT
OF TRANSPORTATION 49 CFR
Parts 571, 585, 587, and 595 Federal
Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Occupant Crash Protection AGENCY: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), DOT. ACTION: Notice of proposed rulemaking. SUMMARY: The agency is proposing to upgrade the agency's occupant protection standard to require advanced air bags. While current air bags have been shown to be highly effective in reducing overall fatalities, they sometimes cause fatalities to out-of-position occupants, especially children. The agency's proposal would require that improvements be made in the ability of air bags to cushion and protect occupants of different sizes, belted and unbelted, and would require air bags to be redesigned to minimize risks to infants, children, and other occupants. The advanced air bags would be required in some new passenger cars and light trucks beginning September 1, 2002, and in all new cars and light trucks beginning September 1, 2005. The agency's proposal is consistent with provisions included in the NHTSA Reauthorization Act of 1998 which mandate the issuance of a final rule for advanced air bags. An appendix to this document responds to several petitions concerning requirements for air bag performance. DATES: Comments must be received by [insert date 90 days after publication of the NPRM in the Federal Register]. ADDRESSES: Comments should refer to the docket number and notice number, and be submitted to: Docket Management, Room PL-401, 400 Seventh Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20590 (Docket hours are from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.) FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For information about air bags and related rulemakings: Visit the NHTSA web site at http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov and select "Air Bags" under "Popular Information." For non-legal issues: Clarke Harper, Chief, Light Duty Vehicle Division, NPS-11, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 400 Seventh Street, SW, Washington, DC 20590. Telephone: (202) 366-2264. Fax: (202) 366-4329. For legal issues: Edward Glancy, Office of Chief Counsel, NCC-20, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 400 Seventh Street, SW, Washington, DC 20590. Telephone: (202) 366-2992. Fax: (202) 366-3820. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Table of Contents Appendix--Response to Petitions A. Petitions Requesting that New Test Requirements be Added to Standard No. 208. D. Petition Objecting to NHTSA's Final Rule on Depowering. I. Overview of Proposed Requirements. The agency is proposing to upgrade Standard No. 208, Occupant Crash Protection, to require advanced air bags. The advanced air bags would be required in some new passenger cars and light trucks beginning September 1, 2002, and in all new cars and light trucks beginning September 1, 2005. The agency is proposing to add a new set of requirements to prevent air bags from causing injuries and to expand the existing set of requirements intended to ensure that air bags cushion and protect occupants in frontal crashes. There would be several new performance requirements to ensure that the advanced air bags do not pose unreasonable risks to out-of-position occupants. The proposal gives alternative options for complying with those requirements so that vehicle manufacturers would be free to choose from a variety of effective technological solutions and to develop new ones if they so desire. With this flexibility, they could use technologies that modulate or otherwise control air bag deployment so deploying air bags do not cause serious injuries or that prevent air bag deployment if children or out-of-position occupants are present. To ensure that the new air bags are designed to avoid causing injury to a broad array of occupants, the agency would test the air bags using test dummies representing 12-month-old, 3-year-old, and 6-year-old children and 5th percentile adult females. The agency is also proposing to ensure that the new air bags are designed to cushion and protect a broader array of belted and unbelted occupants, including teenagers and small women. The standard's current dynamic crash test requirements specify the use of 50th percentile adult male dummies only. Under the proposal, the agency would also use 5th percentile adult female dummies in the future. The weight and size of these dummies are representative of not only small women, but also many teenagers. In addition to the existing rigid barrier test, representing a relatively "stiff" or "hard" pulse crash in perpendicular tests and a more moderate pulse crash in angled tests, the agency is proposing to add a deformable barrier crash test, representing a relatively "soft" pulse crash.(1) In relatively "soft" pulse crashes, some current air bags do not deploy until after the occupants have moved so far forward that they are near the air bag cover when deployment begins. Such "late deployments" lead to high risks of injury. This proposed new crash test requirement is intended to ensure that air bag systems are designed so that the air bag deploys earlier, before normally seated occupants, including small-statured ones, move too close to the air bag. The agency is proposing to use 5th percentile adult female dummies in this test. If an air bag opens in time for small-statured occupants, who generally sit relatively far forward, it will open in time for taller occupants, who sit farther back. The agency is proposing to phase out the unbelted sled test option as requirements for advanced air bags are phased in. Finally, NHTSA is proposing new and/or upgraded injury criteria for all of the standard's test requirements. II. Executive Summary. Air bags have been shown to be highly effective in saving lives. They reduce fatalities in frontal crashes by about 30 percent. As of June 1, 1998, air bags had saved an estimated 3,148 drivers and passengers since their introduction in 1986. However, as of that same date, the agency had confirmed a total of 105 crashes in this country in which an air bag deployment had resulted in fatal injuries. These deaths did not occur at random; they typically involved certain common factors. The persons who have been killed or seriously injured by an air bag were extremely close to the air bag at the time of deployment. The persons shown to be at greatest risk have been (1) unrestrained young children, who can easily be propelled close to or against the passenger air bag before the crash as a result of pre-crash braking, (2) infants in rear facing child seats, who ride with their heads extremely close to the passenger air bag, and (3) drivers (especially unrestrained ones) who sit extremely close to the steering wheel. These drivers are most likely to be small-statured women. Since the problem of air bag deaths first emerged, NHTSA has taken a number of steps to address the problem. In late November 1996, the agency announced that it would be implementing a comprehensive plan of rulemaking and other actions (e.g., consumer education and encouragement of State seat belt use laws providing for primary enforcement of their requirements) addressing the adverse effects of air bags. Recognizing that a relatively long period of lead time is required to make some types of significant design changes to air bags, the agency's comprehensive plan called for both interim and longer-term solutions. The interim solutions included temporary adjustments in Standard No. 208's performance requirements to ensure that the vehicle manufacturers had maximum flexibility to address quickly the problem of risks from air bags. One temporary change was to permit manufacturers to certify their vehicles to an unbelted sled test option, in which a vehicle is essentially stopped quickly, but not actually crashed, instead of to the standard's full scale unbelted crash test, in which a vehicle is actually crashed into a barrier. This made it much easier for the manufacturers to make quick design changes to their air bags. Another temporary change was to permit the vehicle manufacturers to install manual on-off switches for passenger air bags in vehicles without rear seats or with rear seats that are too small to accommodate a rear facing child restraint. Another interim measure taken by NHTSA was to require improved labeling on new vehicles and child restraints to better ensure that drivers and other occupants are aware of the dangers posed by passenger air bags to children. Also, to address the problems faced by persons who are in groups at special risk from air bags, the agency issued a final rule exempting motor vehicle dealers and repair businesses from the statutory prohibition against making federally required safety equipment inoperative so that they may install retrofit manual on-off switches for air bags in vehicles owned or used by such persons and whose requests for switches have been approved by the agency. In today's notice, NHTSA is proposing a longer-term solution. The proposed amendments contemplate implementation of advanced air bag system technology that would minimize or eliminate risks to out-of-position occupants and enhance the benefits provided by air bags to occupants of different sizes, belted and unbelted. The proposed amendments are consistent with the NHTSA Reauthorization Act of 1998, which requires advanced air bags. In developing this proposal, the agency recognized that, to minimize or eliminate air bag risks, either (1) air bag deployment must be suppressed in situations that are risky to occupants, or (2) the air bag must be designed to deploy in such a manner that it does not present a significant risk of serious injury to out-of-position occupants. The agency has used a number of methods to obtain up-to-date information regarding the technology needed for accomplishing these purposes. These methods included meetings with individual manufacturers, a public meeting and written information requests to vehicle and air bag manufacturers for specified types of information. In numerous meetings with vehicle manufacturers and air bag suppliers, the agency discussed the steps that they were taking to address adverse effects of air bags. The agency found that these companies were working on a wide variety of technologies, involving one or both of the approaches (i.e., modulation of deployment or suppression of deployment) discussed above, to minimize or eliminate air bag risks. Vehicle manufacturers and suppliers are working on systems that would prevent an air bag from deploying in situations where it might have an adverse effect, using, for example, sensors that determine the weight, size, and/or location of the occupant. The vehicle manufacturers and suppliers are also working on systems that would modulate the speed and force of the air bag, using multiple level inflators. The activation of those different levels is keyed to sensors that determine such factors as crash severity, seat-track position, occupant weight and/or size, and whether an occupant is belted or not. They are also working on a variety of approaches that make air bags less aggressive to out-of-position occupants, e.g., by changing fold patterns, deployment paths, and venting systems. NHTSA conducted a public meeting in February 1997 to obtain information about available technologies, and separately asked the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for help in obtaining information. JPL surveyed the automotive industry and conducted an analysis of the readiness of advanced air bag technologies. Also, in April 1998, the agency sent an information request concerning advanced air bag technology to nine air bag suppliers. This effort supplemented NHTSA's other efforts to obtain information in this area and was intended to ensure that the agency had the most up-to-date information possible for this rulemaking. The agency considered the information obtained in these various endeavors, as well as other available information, in developing this proposal. To minimize air bag risks, the proposed amendments specify alternative options that would allow use of the differing kinds of technological solutions being developed or considered by the manufacturers to effectively address this problem. For example, the agency is proposing options that would test the performance of air bags designed to inflate in a manner so they do not cause injuries. These options, which are based on an approach recommended by the American Automobile Manufacturers Association (AAMA), specify static out-of-position tests. The agency is proposing use of several child dummies (representing an infant, a 3-year-old, and a 6-year-old) and the Hybrid III 5th percentile adult female dummy in these tests. Injury criteria would be specified for each of the new dummies. The agency is also proposing options that would test the performance of systems designed to suppress air bag deployment in the presence of children and/or out-of-position occupants. NHTSA believes the proposed amendments would permit the vehicle manufacturers to use any technology or design which can effectively address the problem of adverse effects of air bags to out-of-position occupants, without detracting from the ability of the vehicle to meet Standard No. 208's other occupant protection requirements. The design changes that can be used to meet the proposed requirements range from relatively simple changes in the way air bags deploy to advanced systems incorporating sensors which vary air bag deployment depending on the size, weight and dynamic position of an occupant and crash severity. In addition to proposing requirements to address air bag risks to out-of-position occupants, NHTSA is proposing to add to the standard's dynamic frontal crash test requirements to ensure that improved protection is provided to teenagers and adults of different sizes, belted and unbelted, especially ones of smaller stature. Under Standard No. 208's longstanding dynamic crash requirements, vehicles must meet specified injury criteria, including ones for the head and chest, measured on 50th percentile adult male test dummies (both belted and unbelted) during rigid barrier crashes at any speed up to and including 48 km/h (30 mph) and at any angle up to ± 30 degrees.(2) Thus, manufacturers are required to assure compliance with occupant protection requirements in full scale vehicle crashes representing a wide range of severities and crash pulses that could potentially cause fatal injuries. However, despite their compliance with requirements specifying the use of 50th percentile adult male dummies, some current air bags may not provide appropriate protection to small adult occupants. Most significantly, some designs do not take account of the special needs of occupants who must sit relatively close to the air bag, such as small-statured women drivers. In order to provide protection to someone who sits close to the air bag, an air bag must deploy early in a crash event. However, the air bags of some vehicles deploy late in certain kinds of crashes (such as ones with soft pulses), after a small-statured driver, even though belted, has struck the steering wheel. In such a situation, the air bag cannot provide protection and may cause harm. This same problem is faced by persons who sit close to the passenger-side air bag. To address this problem, NHTSA is proposing to add new dynamic crash test requirements using 5th percentile adult female dummies. Protection would be required to be demonstrated in a new "offset deformable barrier crash test," a test which replicates a kind of real world crash likely to result in late deployment of many current air bags. This test measures the performance of the sensor system as well as the air bag in a 25-mph crash with a "soft" pulse, and would use restrained dummies only. In addition, 5th percentile adult female dummies would be added to the standard's existing 30-mph dynamic crash test requirements, using both restrained and unrestrained dummies. The agency has developed injury criteria and seat positioning procedures that it believes are appropriate for small females. Among other things, the agency is including neck injury criteria, since persons close to the air bag at deployment are at greater risk of neck injury. NHTSA notes that it is also proposing to upgrade the current injury criteria specified for 50th percentile adult male dummies, and to add neck injury criteria, to make them consistent with what the agency is proposing for 5th percentile adult female dummies. NHTSA recognizes that adding additional sizes of dummies would increase testing costs, but believes that their addition is needed to ensure that air bag performance is appropriate for occupants of different sizes. NHTSA notes that upgrading Standard No. 208 by adding a greater array of dummy sizes would parallel the agency's recent upgrading of Standard No. 213, Child Restraint Systems, through the addition of a greater array of sizes and weights of child test dummies.(3) Just as that final rule improved the safety of child restraint systems by providing for evaluation of performance in a more thorough manner, the addition of different size test dummies to Standard No. 208 would improve protection for all occupants by requiring more thorough evaluation of a vehicle's occupant protection system. The agency notes that it may issue a separate document proposing to add the Hybrid III 95th percentile adult male dummy to Standard No. 208. With the addition of that dummy, occupant protection would be measured for adult occupant sizes ranging from small-statured females to large-statured males. The agency is not proposing to add the Hybrid III 95th percentile adult male dummy in this notice because development of that dummy has not yet reached the stage where it is appropriate for incorporation into a Federal motor vehicle safety standard. NHTSA also notes that during calendar year 1999 it expects to propose a higher speed frontal offset requirement than that specified for the current barrier test. The agency is still conducting research regarding such a requirement. In addition, as more advanced technology is developed, the agency may develop proposals to require further enhancements in occupant protection under Standard No. 208. To provide vehicle manufacturers sufficient time to complete development of advanced air bag designs meeting the new requirements proposed in today's notice, and implement them into their cars and light trucks, NHTSA is proposing a phase-in of the upgraded requirements beginning September 1, 2002, with full implementation required effective September 1, 2005. The agency is proposing to provide credits for early compliance with the rule. To address the special problems faced by limited line manufacturers in complying with phase-ins, the agency is proposing to permit manufacturers which produce two or fewer carlines(4) the option of omitting the first year of the phase-in if they achieve full compliance effective September 1, 2003. NHTSA notes that Standard No. 208 contains several provisions, noted above, that were added as temporary measures to address air bag risks. One is the provision permitting manufacturers to provide manual on-off switches for passenger air bags in vehicles without rear seats or with rear seats too small to accommodate a rear facing infant seat. It expires on September 1, 2000. The other is the provision permitting certification based on the unbelted sled test alternative to the unbelted barrier test requirements. It was scheduled to expire on September 1, 2001. However, notwithstanding the expiration date currently specified in the standard for the unbelted sled test option, the NHTSA Reauthorization Act of 1998 provides that the sled test option "shall remain in effect unless and until changed by [the final rule for advanced air bags]." The Conference Report states that the current sled test certification option remains in effect "unless and until phased out according to the schedule in the final rule." In this notice, the agency is proposing to amend Standard No. 208 so that both the sled test option and the manual on-off switch provision are phased out as the new requirements for advanced air bags are phased in. During the phase-in, the sled test option and manual cutoff provision would not apply to any vehicles certified to the upgraded requirements, but would be available for vehicles not so certified under the same conditions as they are currently available. Thus, as manufacturers develop advanced air bags, they would need to ensure that vehicles equipped with these devices meet all of Standard No. 208's longstanding performance requirements as well as the new ones being proposed today. The agency is similarly proposing to amend its regulation permitting the installation of retrofit on-off switches to specify that these devices cannot be installed in vehicles that have been certified to the new requirements for advanced air bags. NHTSA notes that, as discussed later in this notice, the auto industry and other commenters have raised a number of objections to the existing unbelted barrier test requirements.(5) While the agency is not proposing alternatives to those requirements in this notice, it is requesting comments on whether it should develop alternative unbelted crash test requirements. This notice also provides the agency's response to all outstanding petitions concerning air bag performance. III. Statutory Requirements. As part of the NHTSA Reauthorization Act of 1998,(6) Congress required the agency to conduct rulemaking to improve air bags. The Act directed NHTSA to issue, not later than September 1, 1998, "a notice of proposed rulemaking to improve occupant protection for occupants of different sizes, belted and unbelted, under Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 208, while minimizing the risk to infants, children, and other occupants from injuries and deaths caused by air bags, by means that include advanced air bags." The Act directs the agency to issue the final rule not later than September 1, 1999. However, if it determines that the final rule cannot be completed by that date, the final rule must be issued no later than March 1, 2000. The final rule must be consistent both with the provisions of the NHTSA Reauthorization Act of 1998 and with 49 U.S.C. § 30111, which specifies the requirements for Federal motor vehicle safety standards. The final rule must become effective in phases as rapidly as practicable, beginning not earlier than September 1, 2002, and no sooner than 30 months after the issuance of the final rule, but not later than September 1, 2003. The final rule must become fully effective by September 1, 2005. However, if the phase-in of the final rule does not begin until September 1, 2003, NHTSA is authorized to delay making the final rule fully effective until September 1, 2006. To encourage early compliance, NHTSA is directed to include in the NPRM means by which manufacturers may earn credits toward future compliance. Credits, on a one-vehicle for one-vehicle basis, may be earned for vehicles which are certified as being in full compliance with the final rule and which are so certified before the beginning of the phase-in period. They may also be earned during the phase-in if a manufacturer's production of complying vehicles for a model year exceeds the percentage of vehicles required to comply in that year. In a paragraph titled "Coordination of Effective Dates," the Act provides that the unbelted sled test option "shall remain in effect unless and until changed by [the final rule for advanced air bags]." The Conference Report states that the current sled test certification option remains in effect "unless and until phased out according to the schedule in the final rule." IV. Safety Problem and the Agency's Remedial Actions. A. Introduction. While air bags are providing significant overall safety benefits, NHTSA is concerned that current air bags have adverse effects on certain groups of people in limited situations. Of particular concern, NHTSA has confirmed 105 primarily low speed crashes in which the deployment of an air bag resulted in fatal injuries to an occupant, as of June 1, 1998. NHTSA believes that none of these occupants would have died if the air bag had not deployed.(7) The primary factor linking these deaths is the proximity of occupants to the air bag when it deployed. These deaths occurred under circumstances in which the occupant's upper body was very near the air bag when it deployed. There were two other factors common to many of the deaths. First, apart from 13 infants fatally injured while riding in rear-facing infant seats, most of the fatally injured people were not using any type of child seat or seat belt. This allowed the people to move forward more readily than properly restrained occupants under conditions of pre-impact braking or low level crashes. Second, the air bags involved in those deaths were, like all current air bags, so-called "one-size-fits-all" air bags that have a single inflation level.(8) These air bags deploy with the same force in very low speed crashes as they do in higher speed crashes. The most direct behavioral solution to the problem of child fatalities from air bags is for children to be properly belted in the back seat whenever possible, while the most direct behavioral solution for the adult fatalities is to use seat belts and move the driver seat as far back as practicable. Implementing these solutions necessitates increasing the percentage of children who are seated in the back and properly restrained in child safety seats. It also necessitates improving the current 69 percent rate of seat belt usage by a combination of methods, including the enactment of State primary seat belt use laws.(9) The most direct technical solution to the problem of fatalities from air bags is to require that motor vehicle manufacturers install advanced air bags that protect occupants from the adverse effects that can occur from being too close to a deploying air bag. All of these solutions are being pursued by the agency. However, until advanced air bags are incorporated into the vehicle fleet, behavioral changes based on better information and communication about potential hazards and simple, non-automatic technology are the best means of addressing fatalities from air bags, especially those involving children. To partially implement these solutions, and preserve the benefits of air bags, while reducing the risk of injury to certain people, NHTSA issued several final rules in the past year-and-a-half. One rule requires new passenger cars and light trucks to bear new, enhanced air bag warning labels. (61 FR 60206; November 27, 1996) Another rule provided vehicle manufacturers with the temporary option of certifying compliance based on a sled test using an unbelted dummy, instead of conducting a vehicle-to-barrier crash test using an unbelted dummy. (62 FR 12960; March 19, 1997) While vehicle manufacturers could have depowered many or most of their vehicles' air bags without changes to Standard No. 208, the final rule expedited this process. In view of concerns that the gentler crash pulse of the sled test would enable many vehicles to meet Standard No. 208's existing injury criteria without an air bag deploying, the agency added neck injury criteria to help ensure that air bags deploy and are not depowered so much as to be ineffective. Unless the air bags deployed, a vehicle would be very unlikely to be able to pass the neck injury criteria limits. The agency concluded that depowering current single-inflation level air bags would most likely reduce the adverse effects of these air bags, although it also expressed concern that depowering could result in less protection being provided to occupants in higher speed crashes, especially for those who are unbelted and/or heavier than average. NHTSA has also issued two final rules related to manual on-off switches. One extends the temporary time period during which vehicle manufacturers are permitted to offer manual on-off switches for the passenger air bag for vehicles without rear seats or with rear seats that are too small to accommodate rear facing infant seats. (62 FR 798; January 6, 1997) The other final rule exempts motor vehicle dealers and repair businesses from the statutory prohibition against making federally-required safety equipment inoperative so that they may install retrofit manual on-off switches for driver and passenger air bags in vehicles owned by or used by persons who are in groups at special risk from air bags and whose requests for switches have been authorized by the agency. (62 FR 62406; November 21, 1997) On the behavioral side, the agency has initiated a national campaign to increase usage of seat belts through the enactment of primary seat belt use laws, more public education, and more effective enforcement of existing belt use and child safety seat use laws. In conjunction with the National Aeronautical and Space Administration, as well as Transport Canada, and in cooperation with domestic and foreign vehicle manufacturers, restraint system suppliers and others through the Motor Vehicle Safety Research Advisory Committee (MVSRAC), NHTSA has undertaken data analysis and research to address remaining questions concerning the development and introduction of advanced air bags. We have changed the date on which the implementation of this rule begins from September 1, 2002, as proposed in the SNPRM, to September 1, 2003. This gives vehicle manufacturers as much lead time as TEA 21 allows for the first stage phase-in. TEA 21 does not permit a later starting date. This change will give the manufacturers a lead time of more than 3 years for vehicles produced during the first year (Model Year (MY) 2004) of that phase-in and more than 6 years for vehicles produced during MY 2007, the first MY in which vehicle manufacturers will be required to manufacture all of their vehicles in compliance with the first stage requirements without the aid of credits. |