[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 55 (Tuesday, March 23, 1999)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 13947-13948]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-7073]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

49 CFR Parts 571, 585, 587, and 595

[Docket No. NHTSA 98-4405, Notice 3]


Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Occupant Crash Protection

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

ACTION: Notice of a technical workshop.

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SUMMARY: Because biomechanical performance criteria are essential to 
the successful design, evaluation, and regulation of vehicle safety 
systems with air bags, NHTSA is holding a technical workshop to provide 
an additional opportunity for a continuing dialog with the biomechanics 
community to insure that appropriate criteria are considered during 
current rulemaking activities. Attendance is open to both participants 
(presenters and discussants) and observers.

DATES: Public Workshop: We will hold the public workshop on April 20 
and 21, 1999, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. Those wishing to 
participate in the workshop should contact Dr. Rolf Eppinger, at the 
address, telephone, or e-mail listed below, by April 8, 1999. If you 
plan to present a statement during the meeting, please provide a copy 
of your statement to Dr. Eppinger by April 13, 1999.
    Written Comments: Written comments may be made to the agency and 
must be received by April 30, 1999.

ADDRESSES: Public Workshop: We will hold the public workshop in room 
2230 of the Nassif Building, 400 Seventh St., SW, Washington, DC 20590.
    Written Comments: If you wish to submit written comments on the 
issues related to or discussed at this workshop, they should refer to 
Docket No. NHTSA 98-4405, Notice 3, and be submitted to: Docket 
Management, Room PL-401, 400 Seventh Street, SW, Washington, DC 20590 
(Docket hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.)

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
    For non-legal issues: Dr. Rolf Eppinger, Office of Human-Centered 
Research, 400 Seventh Street, SW, Washington, DC 20590 (telephone 202-
366-4720; fax 202-366-5670, [email protected]).
    For legal issues: Edward Glancy, Office of Chief Counsel, NCC-20, 
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 400 Seventh Street, SW, 
Washington, DC 20590 (telephone 20--366-2992; fax 202-366-3820).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

A. Background

    On September 18, 1998, we published in the Federal Register (63 FR 
49958) a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to upgrade Standard No. 
208, Occupant Crash Protection, to require advanced air bags. The 
proposal would require that improvements be made in the ability of air 
bags to cushion and protect occupants of different sizes, both belted 
or unbelted, and would require air bags to be redesigned to minimize 
risks of air-bag-induced injuries to infants, children, and other 
occupants seated in a variety of nonstandard positions. The agency held 
a public meeting relating to this proposal on November 23 and 24, 1998.
    Essential parts of our proposal are biomechanical performance 
criteria (injury criteria and associated performance limits) that 
evaluate and limit the impact to test dummies to appropriately safe 
levels under specified test conditions. In the proposal, we referred to 
and provided a supplemental report titled ``Development of Improved 
Injury Criteria for the Assessment of Advanced Automotive Restraint 
Systems' that detailed the sources and processes we used to arrive at 
our proposed biomechanical performance criteria. Comments on these 
proposed performance criteria ranged from agreement with NHTSA's 
proposals to proposals of alternative criteria and limits.
    In light of the diversity of opinions expressed and in order to 
ensure that we consider appropriate criteria in developing the final 
rule, we will hold a technical workshop at which interested persons can 
present, and workshop participants can discuss, the technical bases and 
merits of the performance criteria they believe are the most 
appropriate for the agency to adopt.

B. Public Workshop

1. Purposes and Issues

    The purposes of the workshop are to:
     Gather pertinent information and/or comment concerning the 
technical bases and rationale for the biomechanical performance 
criteria that should be considered by the agency for use in evaluating 
and regulating the performance of advanced air bag safety systems.
     Obtain specific technical comments, discussion, and/or 
constructive input related to the biomechanical performance criteria 
and their limits as proposed by the agency in its Notice of Proposed 
Rulemaking (NPRM) published in the Federal Register (63 FR 49958) on 
September 18, 1998, or those criteria and limits as recommended by 
commenters in response to the notice.
     Provide an opportunity for interested persons to present 
other data and criteria thought biomechanically relevant and 
appropriate for application in the automotive crash environment but not 
cited by either NHTSA or in the comments on the September 1998 NPRM.
    Specific issues to be considered and discussed during the workshop 
include:
     What are the appropriate criteria and their biomechanical 
bases that can be used for the various body regions at risk in a crash? 
(Specific body regions to be considered include as a minimum the skull/
brain, the neck, and the thorax.)
     What statistical techniques are appropriate to extract 
meaningful relationships between measurable engineering parameters and 
the probability of a certain injury outcome?
     What factors should be considered in the evaluation of 
alternative criteria?
     What scaling techniques are appropriate to extend a 
criterion's form and limits to validly encompass the wide range of 
occupant sizes being addressed by NHTSA? (From 12-month-old infant, to 
a 50th percentile adult male.)

2. Availability of Relevant Documents

    The September 18, 1998, proposal for advanced air bags, the 
biomechanical support paper, and comments on the proposal have been 
placed in the docket. To obtain them, you may either visit the docket 
in Washington, DC, or access them via the Web.
    The docket is located in Room PL-401, 400 Seventh Street, SW, 
Washington, DC. Docket hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through 
Friday. The Docket Management Web site is at ``http://dms/.dot.gov/''. 
You should search for Docket number 4405.
    The September 18 proposal (typewritten version) and the two 
technical papers are also available on NHTSA's Web site. The address 
for this site is ``http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/''. You should select 
``Advanced Air Bags'' under ``Popular Information.''

[[Page 13948]]

3. Procedural Matters

    The purpose of this workshop is to provide NHTSA an opportunity for 
further dialog with the biomechanics community and interested parties 
to gather information, data, and opinions on proposals by and to the 
agency regarding biomechanical performance criteria needed to support 
the agency's recently proposed rulemaking initiatives. To maximize the 
output of the workshop within the limited time available, the first 
topic to be addressed will concern the appropriateness of the various 
statistical techniques used to analyze the available biomechanical 
data. Subsequent topics, in the order of their presentation, will be 
discussions of proposals for criteria for the skull/brain, neck, and 
the torso. The order of events in each topic area will be: A short 
presentation of the NHTSA proposal presented in the NPRM. Then, 
presentations by persons and organizations on the proposals and/or 
comments they made to the docket. This will be followed by 
presentations of any new or previously uncited data by interested 
persons, an open discussion by workshop participants of the technical 
merits of the previous presentations, and a summary statement by the 
workshop. To insure that the agency is fully cognizant of their issues 
and positions taken at this workshop, a transcript of the workshop will 
be made. Persons and organizations are also encouraged to submit 
written comments on the issues related to or discussed at this 
workshop. They should be submitted (preferably two copies) to Docket 
Management, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Room PL-
401, 400 Seventh Street, Washington, DC 20590. Submissions must refer 
to Docket NHTSA 98-4405, Notice 3.

4. Workshop Participation

    This workshop is a public workshop, and attendance is open to the 
public. You may attend as a participant (a presenter or a discussant) 
or an observer.

C. Written Comments

    Interested persons are invited to submit comments on this notice. 
Two copies should be submitted to Docket Management at the address 
given at the beginning of this document.
    In addition, for those comments of four or more pages in length, it 
is requested but not required that 10 additional copies, as well as one 
copy on computer disc, be sent to: Dr. Rolf Eppinger, Office of Human-
Centered Research, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 400 
Seventh Street, SW, Washington, DC 20590. This would aid the agency in 
expediting its review of all the comments. The copy on computer disc 
may be in any format although the agency would prefer that it be in 
WordPerfect 8.
    All comments must not exceed 15 pages in length (49 CFR 553.21). 
Necessary attachments may be appended to these submissions without 
regard to the 15-page limit. This limitation is intended to encourage 
commenters to detail their primary arguments in a concise fashion.
    If a commenter wishes to submit certain information under a claim 
of confidentiality, three copies of the complete submission, including 
purportedly confidential business information, should be submitted to 
the Chief Counsel, NHTSA, at the street address given above, and two 
copies from which the purportedly confidential information has been 
deleted should be submitted to Docket Management. A request for 
confidentiality should be accompanied by a cover letter setting forth 
the information specified in the agency's confidential business 
information regulation. 49 CFR part 512.

List of Subjects in 49 CFR Part 571

    Imports, Motor Vehicle Safety, Motor Vehicles.

    Authority: 49 U.S.C. 322, 30111, 30115, 30117, and 30166; 
delegation of authority at 49 CFR 1.50.

    Issued on: March 17, 1999.
L. Robert Shelton,
Associate Administrator for Safety Performance Standards.
[FR Doc. 99-7073 Filed 3-22-99; 8:45 am]
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