Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Occupant Crash Protection; Occupant Protection in Interior Impact

In March 1997, NHTSA temporarily amended the agency's occupant crash protection standard to ensure that vehicle manufacturers can quickly depower all air bags so that they inflate less aggressively. More specifically, the agency adopted an unbelted sled test protocol as a temporary alternative to the standard's full scale unbelted barrier crash test. NHTSA took this action to provide an immediate, but interim, solution to the problem of the fatalities and injuries that current air bags are causing in relatively low speed crashes to small, but growing numbers of children, and occasionally to adult occupants. This document makes a further amendment to the agency's occupant crash protection standard, so that a special, less stringent test requirement in a related standard that applies to vehicles certified to the unbelted barrier test will also apply to vehicles certified to the alternative sled test. This action is necessary to prevent a delay in depowering. NHTSA also solicits comments on this amendment.