Notice of Public Meeting to Address Identification and Publication of the Relative Safety Performance of Different Child Restraint Systems

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

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] BILLING CODE 4910-59-P