Anthropomorphic Test Devices; Denial of Petitions for Reconsideration Regarding the Hybrid III 3-Year Old Child and CRABI Test Dummies

This notice denies two petitions for reconsideration submitted by Ford Motor Company. The petitions ask the agency to reconsider some aspects of final rules, adopting design and performance characteristics of the 12-month-old Child Restraint Airbag Interaction (CRABI) dummy and the 3-year-old Hybrid III child dummy. The petitioner specifically requests that the agency disregard the neck readings in certain circumstances. We are denying these petitions for two reasons. One, we believe that the neck readings do not require special or different instructions and procedures for their analysis, beyond those used for data treatment in the safety standards. Two, we feel that questions related to either the selection of injury criteria or interpretation of compliance test results should be resolved within the relevant safety standard rather than 49 CFR, part 572.