Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Child Restraint Systems

This final rule establishes breaking strength requirements for child restraint webbing. Under today's final rule, new webbing that attaches a restraint to a vehicle is required to have a minimum breaking strength of 15,000 N. New restraint webbing used to restrain a child in a restraint is required to have a minimum breaking strength of 11,000 N. Today's final rule maintains the percent-of-strength requirements for webbing after it is exposed to specific environmental conditions that have been required under the child restraint system standard. Today's final rule also clarifies the weights used in the webbing abrasion test procedure. The requirements of this final rule increase the likelihood that the webbing of child restraint systems will sufficiently perform throughout the life of a child restraint.