In light of the Congressional directives concerning seat belt warnings, NHTSA has taken a variety of actions to research the effectiveness and acceptance of seat belt warnings. See www.regulations.gov for more information. On November 21, 2007, Public Citizen and Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (petitioners) petitioned NHTSA to amend FMVSS No. [34] These include: The types of seat belt warning system requirements the agency should propose; the effectiveness of such systems at increasing rear seat belt use; the degree to which consumers would accept such systems; the associated benefits and costs; and the vehicles to which any proposed requirements should apply. NHTSA seeks comment on whether, and to what degree, a rear seat belt warning would be effective. Boyle & Lampkin, supra, p. iv. 5. [81] 0000047389 00000 n We believe that occupant detection is voluntarily used in the front passenger seat to avoid having an audible warning activate for an unoccupied seat. 73. NHTSA also seeks comment on the technological and economic feasibility of alternative rear seat belt warning systems. Active protection refers to features, such as manual seat belts, that require action by the occupant, while passive protection, sometimes called automatic protection, refers to safety features that do not require any action by the occupant other than sitting in a designated seating position. For rear seats, only the first level warning is required, which consists of a visual warning that must be active for at least 60 seconds. Toyota introduced rear seat belt warning systems in several MY 2017 vehicles and increased the number of equipped vehicles in MY 2018. 3. 100% of the ports are level 2 The OFR/GPO partnership is committed to presenting accurate and reliable Such a warning may reduce the risk of injury to children by alerting the driver that a child has unbuckled his or her seat belt, providing the driver an opportunity to direct the child to re-buckle the belt. The responsibility for promulgation of Federal motor vehicle safety standards is delegated to NHTSA.[56]. These challenges may be greater or lesser depending on the rear seat configuration of the vehicle. Donna Glassbrenner & Marc Starnes. In the U.S., occupant detection is widely used in existing vehicles in the front outboard designated seating positions, either as part of an advanced air bag system, or as part of a voluntary seat belt warning system. B.) The regulations do not require seat belt warnings for any seating position other than the driver's seat. b) accurate observation. You may submit comments to the docket number identified in the heading of this document by any of the following methods: Instructions: All submissions must include the agency name and docket number. 18. h. Cr2S3\mathrm{Cr}_2 \mathrm{~S}_3Cr2S3. In 2007, Public Citizen and Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety petitioned NHTSA to amend FMVSS No. A single-trip manual activation refers to a feature that allows the driver to acknowledge a visual or audio signale.g., with a press of a buttonand not continue seeing or hearing it. See Figure 1. WebUnbelted vehicle occupants reach 0 mph by striking the windshield, steering column and dashboard. Some of the reasons that your driving privilege could be revoked are _______. 208 to require a seat belt warning system for rear seats on passenger cars and multipurpose passenger vehicles (MPVs) with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 4,536 kilograms (10,000 pounds) or less. Privacy Act: Anyone is able to search the electronic form of all comments received into any of our dockets by the name of the individual submitting the comment (or signing the comment, if submitted on behalf of an association, business, labor union, etc.). See, e.g., Transportation Research Board Study, p. 25; DOT 2009 Belt Warning Study, p. 2. You may review DOT's complete Privacy Act Statement in the Federal Register published on April 11, 2000, (Volume 65, Number 70; Pages 19477-78) or you may visit http://www.dot.gov/privacy.html. Seat belts are effective in most types of crashes. Although seat belt use has steadily increased over the past few decades, usage rates for rear belts have consistently been below those for the front seats. has no substantive legal effect. Making the system resistant to intentional and inadvertent defeat. House Report 107-108, June 22, 2001. The study found, among other things, that 81 percent of drivers of vehicles with a rear seat belt warning were very satisfied with the system warning at the beginning of a trip; less than 2 percent were dissatisfied.