[Federal Register Volume 65, Number 5 (Friday, January 7, 2000)]
[Notices]
[Pages 1224-1225]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 00-330]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
[Docket No. NHTSA-99-6628]
Notice of Public Meeting to Address Identification and
Publication of the Relative Safety Performance of Different Child
Restraint Systems
AGENCY: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA),
Department of Transportation (DOT).
ACTION: Notice of public meeting.
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SUMMARY: On February 9, 2000, NHTSA will conduct a public meeting to
discuss the safety performance of child restraint systems and options
for providing consumers with information on the safety performance of
different child restraints. The intent of this meeting is to allow the
sharing of viewpoints, information, and ideas on this important subject
among all interested members of the public, including industry,
government, and advocacy groups. Topics to be discussed include
voluntary standards, strategies for enhancing compliance margins,
improved labeling, and possible ways of rating child restraint safety
performance. We also plan to discuss possible means of notifying
consumers about any ratings that are developed, as well as other
relevant safety information. We anticipate that improving consumer
awareness of these matters will lead manufacturers to improve the
safety of their child restraints.
DATES AND ADDRESSES: Public Meeting: NHTSA will hold the public meeting
on February 9, 2000, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon, and continuing from 1 p.m
to 4 p.m., if necessary. The public meeting will be held in room in
Room 2230, U.S. Department of Transportation, 400 Seventh Street, SW.,
Washington DC 20590. If you wish to participate in the meeting, please
contact Deborah L. Parker or James Gilkey at the mailing address or
telephone number listed below by January 21, 2000. If your presentation
will include slides, motion pictures, or other visual aids, please so
indicate and NHTSA will make the proper equipment available. Presenters
should bring at least one copy of their presentation to the meeting so
that NHTSA can readily include the material in the public record. Those
speaking at the public meeting should limit the length of their
presentations to 15 minutes.
Written Comments: The agency has established Docket No. NHTSA-1999-
6628 as a repository for comments on the issues presented in this
notice. Written comments may be made to this docket at any time. If you
wish to submit written comments on the issues related to or discussed
at this meeting, they should refer to Docket No. NHTSA-1999-6628 and be
submitted to: Docket Management, Room PL-401, 400 Seventh Street, SW.,
Washington, DC 20590 (Docket hours are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.).
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Deborah L. Parker (telephone 202-366-
1768), Office of Vehicle Safety Compliance--NSA 30; James Gilkey
(telephone 202-366-5295), Office of Vehicle Safety Compliance--NSA 32;
or Mary Versailles (telephone 202-366-2057, Office of Safety
Performance Standards--NPS 32, National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, 400 Seventh Street, SW., Washington, DC 20590.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
A. Background
We are all concerned with assuring the safety of our children, our
most precious cargo. With the cooperation of numerous partners,
including the child restraint industry, we have made great strides
during the past few years in enhancing the safety of children riding in
motor vehicles. For example, all states now have laws requiring
children to be in child restraints, and many of these laws have been
upgraded. More and more children are riding in child restraints, and
they have saved an average of over 300 lives per year over the past
five years.
There has also been an increased public awareness of the need to
install child restraint systems properly and to keep children in
appropriate child restraint systems as long as possible. To help assure
proper installation, NHTSA has recently adopted a new safety standard
establishing uniform attachment methods for child restraints. The child
seat manufacturers, vehicle manufacturers, and others in the child
safety community were instrumental in the development of this new
standard. We also applaud the development by manufacturers of child
restraint systems that are easier to install properly as well as
creative, updated installation instructions that are easier for parents
to understand and follow.
However, despite our joint successes in this area, there are issues
that require further attention. As a key protective device for our
Nation's children, child restraints must be designed and constructed
with the highest levels of safety in mind. Any instance in which child
restraints fail to comply with the requirements of Federal Motor
Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 213 causes us concern. Even apart
from actual noncompliances, our review of NHTSA's compliance test
results during the past few years indicates that many restraints have
been engineered to just comply with some of the most safety-critical
requirements of the standard, rather than being engineered with
substantial compliance margins. For example, with respect to the head
excursion requirements of FMVSS No. 213, few of the restraints tested
by NHTSA had a compliance margin of ten percent or more, and hardly any
had more than a twenty percent compliance margin. Conversely,
representatives of some vehicle manufacturers have advised us
informally that they generally have a goal of a twenty percent
compliance margin (although they acknowledge that this goal may not
always be achieved.)
B. Dr. Martinez' Letter to Child Restraint Manufacturers
On September 14, 1999, former NHTSA Administrator Ricardo Martinez,
MD, sent a letter to all manufacturers of child restraints sold in the
United States. That letter identified the above-referenced concerns
about child restraint safety and pointed out that, with the safety of
our Nation's children at issue, mere compliance with the minimum
requirements of the standard is not enough. When products are
engineered with narrow compliance margins, there is room for safety
[[Page 1225]]
improvement, even if the product is in technical compliance with the
minimum performance requirements established by the standard. He also
noted that consumers were very interested in the relative performance
of motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment, such as child
restraints.
Dr. Martinez urged each manufacturer of child restraints to ensure
that their restraints perform above the minimum requirements of our
standard, and indicated that the agency planned to schedule a meeting
``to discuss ways to maximize the safe transportation of children,''
including the possibility of establishing a rating system for child
restraints.
The Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) responded on
behalf of the child restraint manufacturers with a letter dated
November 12, 1999. JPMA said that the historical performance of child
restraint systems in compliance testing is excellent and that their
performance in actual crashes is outstanding. Regarding a rating
system, JPMA said that they believe there are many issues that need to
be discussed before any decision can be made as to the appropriateness
of developing such a program for child restraint systems. In closing,
JPMA said that they feel it is in the best interest of all involved to
develop an ongoing dialogue concerning child passenger safety.
C. Public Meeting
On February 9, 2000, NHTSA will conduct a public meeting to provide
a forum for all interested persons to discuss the issues set out above.
We are especially interested in non-regulatory initiatives that parties
could undertake to improve the safety of child restraints. Specific
topics to be discussed at the meeting include:
1. How can the safety performance of child restraints be further
improved?
2. Even among complying child restraints, are some restraints safer
than others? What data, other than NHTSA compliance test results, exist
to answer this question?
3. Would the development of voluntary industry standards that
exceed or build on the Federal standards be an effective means of
improving child restraint system performance? The recent recalls to
remedy problems with the handles on certain infant seats is an example
of an issue that could have been addressed by the industry before the
seats were brought to market. Could the problems with the handles have
been avoided by use of voluntary industry standards? What other means
are available that reduce the likelihood that such problems recur in
the future?
4. Would increasing compliance margins improve the safety of child
restraints? If so, what can be done to increase compliance margins?
5. Other international programs, such as those in Australia, Japan,
and Europe, have developed or are developing safety ratings of child
restraints under their New Car Assessment Programs (NCAP). Would
ranking the relative performance of child restraints be of interest and
value to consumers? If so:
--Should the performance of child restraints be ranked under test
conditions that supplement the minimum requirements of FMVSS No. 213,
as we do for vehicles in NCAP? If so, under what conditions (e.g., sled
test at 35 mph)?
--Should we consider a rating system based on the compliance margins of
child restraints in current NHTSA tests? This approach would be less
costly for the agency to implement than a separate high speed test
program.
--Which performance requirements should be emphasized (e.g., chest g's,
HIC, head excursion, or some composite)?
--A child restraint that may have performed very well in the agency's
comparative testing might not be the best choice for a particular
vehicle or individual consumer, because performance may be affected by
the vehicle seat, the vehicle configuration and performance, and proper
consumer use based on manufacturers' instructions. Should and could
these factors be reflected in a rating system? If so, how?
D. Oral Presentations
NHTSA will provide auxiliary aids to participants as necessary. Any
person desiring assistance of ``auxiliary aids'' (e.g., sign-language
interpreter, telecommunications devices for deaf persons (TDDs),
readers, taped texts, brailled materials, or large print materials and/
or a magnifying device), please contact Deborah Parker on (202) 366-
1768, or James Gilkey on (202) 366-5295 by January 7, 2000.
E. Written Comments
Interested persons are invited to submit comments on this notice.
Two copies should be submitted to DOT's Docket Management Office at the
address given at the beginning of this document. 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.
Issued on: January 3, 2000.
Kenneth N. Weinstein,
Associate Administrator for Safety Assurance.
Noble N. Bowie,
Acting Associate Administrator for Safety Performance Standards.
[FR Doc. 00-330 Filed 1-4-00; 12:45 pm]
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