Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Designated Seating Positions

This document responds, in part, to petitions for reconsideration of an October 2008 final rule that amended the definition of the term, "designated seating position," as used in the Federal motor vehicle safety standards, to clarify which areas within the interior of a vehicle meet that definition. The final rule made the new definition applicable to vehicles manufactured on and after September 1, 2010. The agency received petitions for reconsideration asking for additional time to comply with the new requirements. This final rule provides one additional year of lead time until the new definition is applicable. In the regulatory text of that final rule, we included language declaring that any State requirement, including any determination under State tort law, premised on there being more designated seating positions than the number contemplated in our definition, would prevent, hinder or frustrate the accomplishment of the purposes of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards in Part 571 of this title, and thus would be preempted by this regulation. The petitions for reconsideration sought removal of this preemption language from the regulatory text. This final rule grants that request by removing the portion of the regulatory text stating that State tort law requirements are preempted. This final rule also makes a technical correction to the regulatory text of the rule setting forth the formula for calculating the number of designated seating positions, the need for which was noted in several of the petitions for reconsideration. The remaining issues raised in the petitions for reconsideration (clarification or change to the manner in which the number of designated seating positions in a vehicle are calculated, procedural issues regarding measuring seating surfaces, countermeasures, and other technical corrections) will be addressed in a separate notice.