Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 213a; Child Restraint Systems-Side Impact Protection; Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 213; Child Restraint Systems, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 213b; Child Restraint Systems

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>National Highway Traffic Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 571 and Part 572</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. NHTSA-2025-0046]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2127-AM62</RIN> <SUBJECT>Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 213a; Child Restraint Systems—Side Impact Protection; Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 213; Child Restraint Systems, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 213b; Child Restraint Systems</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; Grant of petitions for rulemaking and other proposals. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This document proposes amendments to the safety standards for child restraint systems (CRSs). NHTSA is proposing to amend FMVSS No. 213a, “Child restraint systems—side impact protection,” to exempt school bus CRSs from the standard's requirements as long as they meet specified labeling requirements; to delay the compliance date from June 30, 2025 to December 5, 2026; to provide that the Child Restraint Air Bag Interaction twelve-month-old (CRABI-12MO) test dummy will not be used to test forward-facing CRSs; and to amend the positioning procedures for that dummy. The first two of these amendments are in response to petitions from CRS manufacturers. NHTSA is also proposing to amend FMVSS No. 213, “Child restraint systems” and FMVSS No. 213b, “Child restraint systems; Mandatory applicability beginning December 5, 2026,” to exclude school bus CRSs from the requirements to provide attachments for connection to the vehicle's child restraint anchorage system and to change certain labeling requirements to reflect how school bus child restraints are used. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be submitted no later than June 30, 2025. <E T="03">Proposed Effective date:</E> The effective date would be 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">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Docket Management Facility, M-30, U.S. Department of Transportation, West Building, Ground Floor, Rm. W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590. • <E T="03">Hand Delivery or Courier:</E> West Building, Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. To be sure someone is there to help you, please call (202) 366-9332 before coming. • <E T="03">Fax:</E> 202-493-2251. Regardless of how you submit your comments, please mention the docket number of this document. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> For detailed instructions on submitting comments and additional information on the rulemaking process, see the Public Participation heading of the Supplementary Information section of this document. Note that all comments 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 claim that any of the information in your comment (including any additional documents or attachments) constitutes confidential business information within the meaning of 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(4) or is protected from disclosure pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 1905, please see the detailed instructions given under the Public Participation heading of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. <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. <E T="03">Privacy Act:</E> Please see the Privacy Act heading under the Regulatory Analyses section of this document. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For technical issues, you may contact Cristina Echemendia, Office of Crashworthiness Standards (email: <E T="03">Cristina.Echemendia@dot.gov</E> ). For legal issues, you may contact John Piazza, Office of Chief Counsel (email: <E T="03">John.Piazza@dot.gov</E> ). You can reach these officials by phone at 202-366-1810. 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> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Proposed Amendments to Side Impact Requirements (FMVSS No. 213a)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Exempt School Bus CRSs From the Side Impact Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Exclude the CRABI-12MO Test Dummy From Testing Forward-Facing CRSs and Make Corresponding Amendments to the Dummy Positioning Procedures</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Delay the Compliance Date From June 30, 2025 to December 5, 2026</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Proposed Amendments to Front Impact Requirements (FMVSS Nos. 213 and 213b)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Costs and Benefits</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Proposed Effective Date</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. Regulatory Notices and Analyses</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VIII. Public Participation</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Proposed Regulatory Text</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> This document proposes amendments to three different safety standards: FMVSS No. 213, “Child restraint systems; Applicable unless a vehicle or child restraint system is certified to § 571.213b”; FMVSS No. 213b, “Child restraint systems; Mandatory applicability beginning December 5, 2026”; and FMVSS No. 213a, “Child restraint systems—side impact protection.” FMVSS Nos. 213, 213a, and 213b set out most of the agency's safety requirements for child restraint systems (CRS). This document proposes four amendments to the side impact standard (FMVSS No. 213a): • Exempt school bus CRSs from the side impact requirements in FMVSS No. 213a. The December 5, 2023 final rule updating FMVSS No. 213 and establishing FMVSS No. 213b for frontal impact requirements, amended the standards to permit more types of add-on CRSs specially designed for exclusive use on school buses, that were not permitted at the time, with the intent to facilitate the availability of these CRSs that are only used on school buses. Because these CRSs are designed to install on school bus seats with seat back mounts, their construction does not provide rigid side structures (similar to harnesses) and because the side impact environment in school buses is different from the side impact environment simulated by the FMVSS No. 213a standard, the agency is proposing to exempt school bus CRSs from FMVSS No. 213a. This proposal is NHTSA's action on a grant of petitions for rulemaking from IMMI and BESI, Inc. • Delay the compliance date of FMVSS No. 213a from June 30, 2025 to December 5, 2026. The agency received a petition for rulemaking from a group of CRS manufacturers which requested a delay on the FMVSS No. 213a compliance date to “prevent market disruption resulting in reduced availability of CRSs” and due to “limited availability of compliance lab sled time” that is needed for the development and certification of their products. This proposal is NHTSA's action on a grant of petitions for rulemaking from a group of CRS manufacturers. • Provide that the CRABI-12MO test dummy will not be used to test forward-facing CRSs for side impact requirements in FMVSS No. 213a. The frontal update standard (FMVSS No. 213b) requires that forward-facing CRSs must have a minimum recommended child weight of 12 kg (26.5 lbs.). Since the CRABI-12MO dummy only weighs 10 kg (22 lb.), the standard excluded testing forward-facing CRSs with the CRABI-12MO dummy because the dummy would be too small for the CRS design. To maintain consistency between standards, the agency proposes to exclude testing forward-facing CRSs from side impact requirements in FMVSS No. 213a. • Amend the positioning procedures for the CRABI-12MO dummy to reflect that the dummy would no longer be tested with forward-facing CRSs. NHTSA is also proposing to amend FMVSS No. 213, “Child restraint systems” and FMVSS No. 213b, “Child restraint systems; Mandatory applicability beginning December 5, 2026,” to exclude school bus CRSs from the requirements to provide attachments for connection to the vehicle's child restraint anchorage system. Generally, school bus CRSs have a seat back mounting installation method that is necessary for school bus seats. It was not the intent of the agency to apply the requirement for child restraint anchorage system attachments to the school bus CRSs when the agency finalized the frontal impact update final rule. Therefore, NHTSA proposes to add school bus CRSs to the exclusion list in both FMVSS No. 213 S5.9(a) and FMVSS No. 213b S5.9(a). The agency also proposes to amend S5.5.2(g)(1)(ii) in FMVSS Nos. 213 and 213b which require a labeling statement regarding how to secure the CRS to the vehicle to be consistent with the seat back mount required in school bus CRSs. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> This document proposes amendments to three different safety standards: FMVSS No. 213, “Child restraint systems; Applicable unless a vehicle or child restraint system is certified to § 571.213b”; FMVSS No. 213b, “Child restraint systems; Mandatory applicability beginning December 5, 2026”; and FMVSS No. 213a, “Child restraint systems—si ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 75k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━