Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Occupant Crash Protection

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>National Highway Traffic Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Parts 571 and 585</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. NHTSA-2024-0038]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2127-AL90</RIN> <SUBJECT>Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Occupant Crash Protection</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This final rule amends Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 208, “Occupant crash protection,” updating the child restraint systems (CRSs) listed in the standard. NHTSA uses the CRSs to test the performance of advanced air bag suppression and low risk deployment systems in either suppressing or deploying the air bag in a low-risk manner in the presence of a CRS. The amendments will ensure that the CRSs used by NHTSA to test advanced air bags are representative of the current CRS market and will make it easier for vehicle manufacturers and test laboratories to acquire CRSs for testing purposes. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective date:</E> October 21, 2024. <E T="03">Petition for reconsideration:</E> If you wish to petition for reconsideration of this rule, your petition must be received by October 7, 2024. <E T="03">Compliance date:</E> This final rule adopts a phase-in of the revised appendix. The phase-in begins on September 1, 2025, when forty percent of a manufacturer's applicable light vehicles must comply with the revised appendix. By September 1, 2026, all applicable light vehicles must comply with the revised appendix. We are also allowing optional early compliance. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Petitions for reconsideration of this final rule must refer to the docket and notice number set forth above and be submitted to the Administrator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590. Note that all petitions received will be posted without change to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. <E T="03">Confidential Business Information:</E> If you wish to submit any information under a claim of confidentiality, you should submit your complete submission, including the information you claim to be confidential business information, to the Chief Counsel, NHTSA, at the address given under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> : In addition, you should submit a copy, from which you have deleted the claimed confidential business information, to Docket Management at the address given above. When you send a submission containing information claimed to be confidential business information, you should include a cover letter setting forth the information specified in our confidential business information regulation (49 CFR part 512). Please see further information in the Regulatory Notices and Analyses section of this preamble. <E T="03">Privacy Act:</E> The petition will be placed in the docket. Anyone is able to search the electronic form of all documents received into any of our dockets by the name of the individual submitting the comment (or signing the comment, if submitted on behalf of an association, business, labor union, etc.). You may review DOT's complete Privacy Act Statement in the <E T="04"> Federal Register </E> published on April 11, 2000 (65 FR 19477-78) or you may visit <E T="03">https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/privacy/privacy-act-system-records-notices.</E> <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> or the street address listed above. Follow the online instructions for accessing the dockets. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For technical issues, you may call Carla Rush, Office of Crashworthiness Standards (telephone: 202-366-6345). For legal issues, you may call Matthew Filpi, Office of Chief Counsel (telephone: 202-366-2992). Address: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Washington, DC 20590. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents </HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Background on Air Bag Systems</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Background on Advanced Air Bag Systems</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Appendix A-1's Current Framework</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Development of the 2020 NPRM</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Amendments to Appendices A and A-1 as Part of This Final Rule </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">Differences Between the NPRM and the Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Deletion of the Evenflo Discovery Adjust Right and Addition of the Evenflo NurtureMax Into Subpart B</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Addition of the Evenflo Litemax 35 #3305xxxxx Instead of the Evenflo Embrace Into Subpart B</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Addition of the Cybex Cloud Q With SensorSafe Instead of the Cybex Aton 2 Into Subpart B</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Addition of the Nuna Pipa RX With Pipa RELX Base Instead of the Britax B-Safe 35 Into Subpart B</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Deletion of the Britax Roundabout EL02XX and Addition of the Nuna Rava #CS05116CVR Into Subpart C</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Addition of the Britax Poplar #E1C93xx Instead of the Britax Marathon ClickTight Into Subpart C</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Addition of the Graco Contender Slim Instead of the Graco Contender 65 Into Subpart C</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Addition of the Evenflo Chase Plus #307xxxxx Instead of the Evenflo Chase #306xxxxx Into Subparts C&D</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Correction and Name Updates for 6 Proposed CRSs</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Discussion of Comments to the NPRM</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Summary of Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. The CRSs Proposed in the NPRM</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Availability of the Safety 1st Dreamride SE Latch #IC238</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Frequency of Updates to the Appendix</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Test Procedures</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">i. Testing With the CRABI Dummy</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">ii. Seat Belt Load Requirement</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">iii. Compliance Concerns With New Heavier CRSs</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">iv. Safety Need for Appendix Update</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Comments on the Proposed Regulatory Text</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Comments on the Compliance Date</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Discussion of Benefits and Costs Associated With the Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. Regulatory Analyses</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> This final rule amends FMVSS No. 208 to update the child restraint systems (CRSs) listed in appendix A-1 of the standard. The CRSs in appendix A-1 are used by NHTSA to test advanced air bag suppression or low risk deployment systems to ensure that they mitigate the risk of harm to children and infants by either suppressing or deploying the air bag in a low-risk manner in the presence of a child in a CRS. NHTSA is updating appendix A-1 to reflect the changes to the availability of CRSs in the marketplace since 2008 when the appendix was last updated. The amendments finalized in this rule will replace all the CRSs listed in appendix A-1. This final rule will allow a phase-in of the amendment to give manufacturers reasonable time to certify their advanced air bag systems using the new CRSs, with optional early compliance permitted. To effectuate the phase-in using the regulatory framework of FMVSS No. 208, this update will move the CRSs that are now in appendix A-1 to appendix A and reference the new proposed CRSs in appendix A-1. This final rule will allow the agency to test advanced air bags with CRSs that are more representative of the current CRS market. Furthermore, since the last significant update to the appendix was in 2008, many CRS models listed in the current appendix have been discontinued and are difficult and time-consuming to acquire. This update to appendix A-1 will make it easier for vehicle manufacturers and test laboratories to acquire the CRSs for testing purposes. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Background on Air Bag Systems</HD> <E T="03">NHTSA Has Required Air Bag Systems in Vehicles since the Late 1990s, but Early Air Bag Systems Risked Injury to Certain Populations.</E> To prevent or mitigate the risk of injuries or fatalities in frontal crashes, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 208, Occupant crash protection, <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> requires passenger vehicles to be equipped with seat belts and frontal air bags. Although FMVSS No. 208 did not require frontal air bags on passenger cars until model year (MY) 1998 and on multipurpose passenger vehicles and light trucks until MY 1999, air bags were already in widespread use by the early 1990s. These early-generation air bags were highly effective in protecting occupants in frontal crashes but caused a number of injuries and fatalities to certain occupants who were especially vulnerable to air bag-related risks. Frontal air bags posed the largest threat to occupants vulnerable to air bag-related risks. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  49 CFR 571.208. </FTNT> Since the introduction of air bag systems into vehicles, NHTSA has maintained two consistent messages relating to children and air bag systems. First, NHTSA has consistently recommended that children under the age of 13 be seated in the back seat of vehicles. If consumers were to always seat their children—whether positioned in a CRS or not—in the back seats of their vehicles, air bags would pose very little r ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 124k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━