Event Data Recorders

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>National Highway Traffic Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 563</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. NHTSA-2024-0084]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2127-AM12</RIN> <SUBJECT>Event Data Recorders</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 regulations regarding event data recorders (EDRs) to extend the EDR recording period for timed data metrics from 5 seconds of pre-crash data at a frequency of 2 Hz to 20 seconds of pre-crash data at a frequency of 10 Hz. This final rule responds to the mandate of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act) to establish the appropriate recording period in NHTSA's EDR regulation. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective Date:</E> This rule is effective January 17, 2025. <E T="03">Compliance Dates:</E> The compliance date is September 1, 2027. Vehicles produced by small-volume or limited-line manufacturers must comply with this final rule on or after September 1, 2029. Altered vehicles and vehicles manufactured in two or more stages must comply with this final rule if manufactured on or after September 1, 2030. <E T="03">Petition for reconsideration:</E> Petitions for reconsideration of this final rule must be received not later than February 3, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Petitions for reconsideration of this final rule must refer to the docket number set forth above (NHTSA-2024-0084) 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">https://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> <E T="03">For technical issues:</E> Mr. Joshua McNeil, Office of Crashworthiness Standards, Telephone: (202) 366-1810, Facsimile: (202) 493-2739. <E T="03">For legal issues:</E> Ms. Natasha D. Reed, Office of the Chief Counsel, Telephone: (202) 366-2992, Facsimile: (202) 366-3820. The mailing address for 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. Overview of the Event Data Recorder Technology and Regulatory History</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. The Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Notice of Proposed Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Developments Culminating in the NPRM</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Summary of the NPRM</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Requirements of the Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Lead Time</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Final Rule and Response to Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Recording Duration and Sampling Rate</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. EDR Components</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Additional Data Elements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Privacy Considerations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. International Harmonization</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Other Considerations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Summary of Estimated Costs and Benefits</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Benefits</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Costs</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Rulemaking Analyses and Notices</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> NHTSA established 49 CFR part 563 (part 563) in 2006, setting forth requirements for data elements, data capture and format, data retrieval, and data crash survivability of EDRs. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Part 563 does not mandate EDRs on vehicles, but is instead an “if equipped” standard applying only to light vehicles required to have frontal air bags that a manufacturer chooses to voluntarily equip with EDRs. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> Part 563 ensures all EDRs subject to the regulation capture the same core set of data elements in a crash, standardizes the parameters (format, duration, etc.) of captured data elements, and sets minimum requirements for data survivability. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Part 563 further requires that manufacturers of vehicles with EDRs subject to part 563 make commercially available a tool for the purpose of downloading  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> the data collected by the EDR. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  71 FR 50998 (Aug. 28, 2006). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  In 2012, NHTSA proposed to convert part 563's “if equipped” requirements for EDRs into a new Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) mandating the installation of EDRs in most light vehicles. The NPRM did not propose making any changes to the current EDR regulation's performance requirements, including those for the required data elements (77 FR 74144 (Dec. 13, 2012)). In 2019, NHTSA withdrew that proposal due to the near universal installation of EDRs on light vehicles (84 FR 2804 (Feb. 8, 2019)). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  Part 563 requires EDR data to survive the crash tests in FMVSS Nos. 208, “Occupant crash protection,” and 214, “Side impact protection.” </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  For the purposes herein, we are using the term “downloading” to refer to the process by which data are retrieved from an EDR. When downloading the data on an EDR, the original data set remains intact and unchanged in the memory banks of the EDR. NHTSA has also used the term “imaging” in other documents to refer to the same process. NHTSA uses imaging and downloading interchangeably. </FTNT> This rulemaking amends current NHTSA regulations regarding EDRs under part 563 by extending the capture and recording period for timed data metrics from 5 seconds of pre-crash data at a sample rate of 2 Hz to 20 seconds of pre-crash data at a sample rate of 10 Hz ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> an increase from 2 samples per second to 10 samples per second). The objective of this amendment is to capture and record the appropriate amount of data to provide sufficient vehicle-related data to assist investigations of the cause of motor vehicle crashes. This rulemaking is issued in response to a statutory mandate under section 24303 of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act), Pub. L. 119-14 (Dec. 4, 2015). The increased sample rate required by this final rule will provide crash investigators a better understanding of the sequence of pre-crash actions, and the increased recording duration will provide more details on actions taken prior to crashes. Specifically, with the implementation of this final rule's increased recording duration, actions such as running a stop sign or red light could be captured in full and included in crash reconstruction when supplemented with roadway and traffic control information. The increased recorded duration could also help capture any corrective maneuvers taken by a vehicle prior to an initial road departure. The increased data recording frequency required by this final rule will help clarify the interpretation of recorded pre-crash information, including braking and steering actions taken by a vehicle. It will also help reduce potential uncertainty related to the relative timing of recorded data elements, and assist with the identification of potential pedal misapplication. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Overview of the Event Data Recorder Technology and Regulatory History</HD> Event data recorders are devices installed in a vehicle to capture and record technical information immediately before and during a crash on the status and operation of vehicle systems. An EDR reserves a random access memory (RAM) buffer the size of one EDR record to locally store data before the data are written to memory. The data are typically stored using Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM) or data flash memory, <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> both of which are types of non-volatile memory. The RAM buffer is typicall ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 175k characters. 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