[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 36 (Wednesday, February 24, 1999)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 9118-9119]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-4582]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

49 CFR Part 571

[Docket No. NHTSA 99-5094]


Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards

AGENCY: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), DOT.

ACTION: Denial of petition for rulemaking.

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SUMMARY: The agency denies a petition for rulemaking from Mr. Les Boyd 
requesting that NHTSA initiate rulemaking to consider requiring motor 
vehicle manufacturers to equip new vehicles with instrumentation 
sufficient to alert nearby police whenever the vehicles are being 
operated with an unbelted occupant. Mr. Boyd suggested that 
implementation of the requested amendment would lead to increases in 
the rate of safety belt use.
    The agency is denying the petition for the following reasons. 
First, implementation of the requested amendment would be costly since 
it would necessitate the installation of seat belt use sensors and a 
transmitter in each vehicle. Second, the requested amendment would have 
limited effect on safety belt use rates in the majority of states that 
have mandatory safety belt use laws. These states permit officers to 
stop a vehicle or issue a citation for an occupant's failure to use a 
safety belt only if the officers also observe a separate concurrent 
violation. Third, even in those states whose mandatory safety belt use 
laws permit officers to enforce those laws without the necessity of 
observing a separate concurrent violation, the requested amendment 
might not lead to increased safety belt use. In order for officers to 
readily identify the vehicle emitting the signal, the instrumentation 
would have to identify such things as the make, model, model year and 
perhaps even color and vehicle identification number of that vehicle. 
The transmission of such information would raise privacy concerns.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Clarke Harper, Office of 
Crashworthiness Standards, NRM-11, National Highway Traffic Safety 
Administration, 400 Seventh Street, SW., Washington, DC 20590. 
Telephone (202) 366-4916.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On February 5, 1998, Mr. Les Boyd submitted 
a petition for rulemaking requesting that NHTSA consider

[[Page 9119]]

requiring motor vehicle manufacturers to equip new vehicles with 
instrumentation sufficient to alert nearby police whenever the vehicles 
are being operated while one or more occupants are unbelted. Mr. Boyd 
argued that automobile crashes are increasing and that more effort must 
be made to insure that ``all occupants are wearing seat belts and/or 
wiring harness.'' The petitioner did not provide any data or other 
information relating to the cost of such devices, their effectiveness 
or the feasibility of such a system.
    NHTSA agrees that the failure of many vehicle occupants to use 
safety belts is a significant concern. The agency has expended 
considerable effort and resources to improve the rate of safety belt 
use in the United States. NHTSA has prepared and distributed numerous 
legislative fact sheets, position papers, success stories, model laws 
for both seat belts and child passenger safety, and other materials on 
the benefits of mandatory seat belt and child passenger safety laws. 
Agency employees have testified, when invited by the state, at state 
legislative hearings for states when they were in the process of 
enacting the belt use laws. More recently, NHTSA employees have 
testified in support of attempts within various states to change 
secondary enforcement laws, under which police officers must observe a 
separate and distinct violation before stopping a vehicle where 
occupants are not using belts, to primary enforcement laws. Primary 
enforcement laws allow police officers to make stops and issue 
citations on the basis of observing only a seat belt violation. NHTSA 
has also established Cooperative Agreements with numerous states to 
demonstrate that publicized enforcement of a mandatory seat belt law 
can increase seat belt use in the state and formed formal partnerships 
with many national organizations for the purpose of mobilizing their 
membership to promote traffic safety in general, and seat belt and 
child safety seat use in particular. The agency has produced brochures, 
posters, videos, print ads, bill boards, public service announcements, 
and a host of other media resource materials to educate the public on 
the safety benefits of seat belts. Other activities pursued by the 
agency to improve belt use include programs to improve the training of 
law enforcement officers, the use of child safety seat checkpoints and 
other measures designed to improve belt use and enforcement of 
mandatory belt use laws.
    Even though the benefits of increased safety belt use would be 
considerable, the agency believes that requiring all vehicles to be 
equipped with a transmitter would, under present conditions, be 
unlikely to improve enforcement of mandatory safety belt laws in the 
majority of jurisdictions. Mandatory safety belt use laws are now in 
effect in 49 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the 
Virgin Islands. Of these, 35 states and the District of Columbia have 
secondary laws. Equipping vehicles with a device which alerted police 
officers to a safety belt violation would be of little use in these 
jurisdictions. The officers would be prohibited from taking any action 
unless they observed a separate and distinct violation at the same 
time. Under those conditions, the agency believes that it is extremely 
unlikely that state and local governments would invest in the police 
car equipment necessary to implement the scheme suggested by the 
petitioner.
    Even in those jurisdictions with primary enforcement laws, the 
requested amendment might not lead to increased safety belt use. In 
order for the transmitting device to work successfully in areas where 
there are large concentrations of vehicles, the device would have to do 
more than simply alert police officers that a safety belt violation was 
occurring in the vicinity. In order to allow identification of the 
vehicle in which an operator or occupant was not wearing a belt, the 
transmitting device would have to transmit sufficient specific 
information about the vehicle to enable police to distinguish it from 
other vehicles. These identifying data would, at the very least, have 
to include information regarding the color, manufacturer and 
configuration of the transmitting vehicle. The agency believes that the 
presence of such a device, particularly if it were to transmit such 
information constantly as a result of a malfunction or other 
circumstance, would raise potentially troublesome privacy concerns.
    The agency notes that it issued a final rule in February 1972 (37 
FR 3911) modifying Standard No. 208, Occupant Crash Protection, to 
provide manufacturers choosing not to install passive (i.e., automatic) 
restraints with the option to equip vehicles with a seat belt interlock 
device. The interlock prevented drivers from starting their car unless 
all front seat occupants of the vehicle had fastened their safety 
belts. Although the interlock device had a more direct impact on the 
operation of the vehicle than the device suggested by the petitioner, 
public reaction against this measure was strong. The interlock device 
option was subsequently rescinded after Congress directed the agency to 
eliminate it. While the device suggested by the petitioner would not 
directly affect the operation of the vehicle as the interlock device 
did, NHTSA believes that a device having the capability to transmit the 
location of a vehicle to governmental entities any time a seat belt was 
not fastened would arouse similar public concerns.
    The agency observes that installation and successful use of such a 
device would require installation of additional equipment beyond that 
which the petitioner may have envisioned. The transmitting device would 
have to be coupled with belt use sensors at all seating positions. The 
belt use sensors, in order to be effective, would have to have features 
that would make it difficult to circumvent the system as in the 
instance in which an occupant would sit on a fastened belt instead of 
wearing it. The transmitting device would similarly have to be designed 
so that it could not be readily disabled and would have to work 
reliably and without emitting false signals. Police vehicles would need 
to have a reliable receiving device equipped with a display or other 
means to provide specific identifying information about the vehicle 
emitting the signal. The cost of this additional equipment, when added 
to that of the transmitter, would be considerable.
    For the reasons stated above, NHTSA concludes that it is unlikely 
that a rulemaking proceeding to require the transmitter suggested by 
the petitioner would result in the issuance of a rule requiring such a 
device. Accordingly, the petition is denied.

    Authority: 49 U.S.C. 30162; delegation of authority at 49 CFR 
1.50 and 501.8.

    Issued on February 5, 1999.
Stephen P. Kratzke,
Acting Associate Administrator for Safety Performance Standards.
[FR Doc. 99-4582 Filed 2-23-99; 8:45 am]
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