Make Inoperative Exemptions; Retrofit Air Bag On-Off Switches and Air Bag Deactivations

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>National Highway Traffic Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 595</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. NHTSA-2024-0046]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2127-AL64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Make Inoperative Exemptions; Retrofit Air Bag On-Off Switches and Air Bag Deactivations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposes amendments to the requirements and processes for individuals to request that the agency permit them to have an air bag on-off switch installed in their vehicle. The proposed amendments would eliminate the sunset date, and would also narrow the population of people eligible to have an on-off switch installed. Furthermore, the agency also proposes amendments to several appendices, and proposes the addition of a new appendix. Lastly, this NPRM proposes that NHTSA codify its process for reviewing requests for air bag deactivations, which are currently granted or denied through the agency's enforcement discretion. In this document, NHTSA solicits feedback from the public to better inform the agency's decision-making on the proposed amendments. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> You should submit your comments early enough to be received not later than November 18, 2024. <E T="03">Proposed effective date:</E> We propose that the effective date for the amendments in this rulemaking action would be immediately after the date of publication of the final rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments to the docket number identified in the heading of this document by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Docket Management Facility: U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001. • <E T="03">Hand Delivery or Courier:</E> 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. EST, Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. • <E T="03">Fax:</E> (202) 493-2251. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions must include the agency name and docket number or Regulatory Information Number (RIN) for this rulemaking. Note that all comments received will be posted without change to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. (For more details, please see the Privacy Act discussion below.) We will consider all comments received before the close of business on the comment closing date indicated above. To the extent possible, we will also consider comments filed after the closing date. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at any time or to 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal Holidays. Telephone: (202) 366-9826. <E T="03">Privacy Act:</E> Anyone can search the electronic form of all comments 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, (Volume 65, Number 70; Pages 19477-78) or you may visit <E T="03">https://www.dot.gov/privacy.html.</E> <E T="03">Confidential Business Information:</E> If you wish to submit any information under a claim of confidentiality, you should submit three copies of 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 two copies, from which you have deleted the claimed confidential business information, to Docket Management at the address given above. When you send a comment 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). <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For technical issues, you may contact Ms. Carla Rush, Office of Crashworthiness Standards, Telephone: (202) 366-4583, Facsimile: (202) 493-2739. For legal issues, you may contact Mr. Matthew Filpi, Office of the Chief Counsel, Telephone: (202) 366-2992, Facsimile: (202) 366-3820. The mailing address of these officials is: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, 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. Regulatory History of Air Bag On-Off Switches and Deactivation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Background on Advanced Air Bag Systems</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Current Part 595 Subpart B Requirements and Procedures for Obtaining Exemptions for Retrofit On-Off Switches</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Air Bag Deactivations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Proposed Amendments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Removal of the Sunset Date Provision for Retrofit Air Bag On-Off Switches</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Adjustment of Criteria for At-Risk Occupants To Obtain a Retrofit Air Bag On-Off Switch for Vehicles Equipped With Advanced Air Bags</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">i. Exemptions for Infants in Rear-Facing Child Restraint Systems Who Must Be Transported in the Front Passenger Seat</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">ii. Exemptions for Children Ages 1 to 12 Who Must Be Transported in the Front Passenger Seat</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Requests for Air Bag Deactivations (General Public)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Exemptions for Law Enforcement and Emergency Vehicles</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">i. On-Off Switches</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">ii. Deactivations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Update of Information Brochure</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Estimates of Benefits and Costs</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Proposed Effective Date</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Regulatory Notices and Analyses</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. Public Participation</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> Since the late 1990s, NHTSA has permitted, under certain circumstances, both manufacturers and repair shops to install switches in motor vehicles that allow the occupant to turn on and off the vehicle's air bag system. This installation would typically be a violation of the “make inoperative” provision of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, but NHTSA added an express exemption to that provision for air bags because of the threat of injury that early air bag systems posed to children and smaller statured occupants. This exemption—49 CFR part 595 subpart B—outlines the process by which an individual can petition the agency for an air bag on-off switch to be installed in their vehicle. NHTSA has stated repeatedly since creating part 595 subpart B that the solution to the dangers posed by early air bag systems was advanced air bag systems that could adapt or suppress their deployment based on the vehicle occupant. Accordingly, NHTSA has repeatedly put a sunset date on the on-off switch provision, with the most recent sunset date in 2015. Since then, NHTSA has continued to use its enforcement discretion to grant requests for air bag on-off switches. The agency has also used its enforcement discretion to grant air bag system deactivation in special circumstances, even though the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) do not currently provide a formal process for requesting deactivation. This NPRM proposes several updates to part 595 to take into account the continued development and effectiveness of advanced air bag systems. Additionally, the NPRM proposes codifying the process by which individuals may petition the agency for air bag deactivation in special circumstances. The agency seeks public comment on the proposals listed below. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Regulatory History of Air Bag On-Off Switches and Deactivation</HD> To prevent or mitigate the risk of injuries or fatalities in frontal crashes, FMVSS No. 208, Occupant Crash Protection, <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> requires that passenger vehicles 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 fatalities to certain occupants who were especially vulnerable to air bag-related risks. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  49 CFR 571.208. </FTNT> NHTSA has long maintained that the long-term solution to the problem of air bag-related injuries to these at-risk populations was the development and widespread implementation of advanced air bag systems, which could sense the kind of occupant seated and adjust deployment to protect at-risk passengers. However, during the 1990s, when air bag-related injuries and fatalities emerged as a safety problem, advanced air bags were still a nascent technology. <S ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 108k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━