Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 201 — Occupant Protection in Interior Impact — was upgraded in 1995, with a 1998-2003 phase-in, to reduce occupants’ risk of head injury from contact with a vehicle’s upper interior, including its pillars, roof headers and side rails, and the upper roof. Initially, energy-absorbing materials alone were used to meet the standard. NHTSA statistically analyzed the effect of these materials on head injuries due to upper-interior contact in cars and light trucks in the Crashworthiness Data System of the National Automotive Sampling System for 1995-2009 and the effect on head injuries in fatal crashes in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System — Multiple Cause of Death files for 1999-2007. FMVSS No. 201 without head-protection air bags reduces AIS 4-to-6 head injuries due to contact with upper-interior components by an estimated 24 percent (95% confidence bounds, 11 to 35%), based on the average of the analysis results for the two databases. That is equivalent to a 4.3-percent reduction of overall fatality risk (confidence bounds 2.0 to 6.2%). When all vehicles on the road meet FMVSS No. 201, it will save an estimated 1,087 to 1,329 lives per year. At a cost of $25.52 (in 2010 dollars) over the life of a vehicle, that amounts to an annual cost, depending on new-vehicle sales, ranging from $301 to $424 million for certifying all new vehicles to FMVSS No. 201. It is a very cost-effective regulation, costing less than $1 million per life saved. (Author/publisher)
Abstract