In March of 1997, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published a final rule amending the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 208 (FMVSS 208) Occupant Protection requirements to allow manufacturers to de-power their air bags. The agency subsequently issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on advanced air bags in September 1998 and a supplemental NPRM (SNPRM) in November 1999. The final rule was issued in May 2000 amending the occupant protection standard to have the manufacturers design the air bags to protect small stature adults and young children in frontal crashes and to reduce the risk of serious air bag induced injury, particularly for small women and children. In June of 2001, the NHTSA published in the Federal Register a request for comments on a plan to monitor the performance of advanced air bags and to develop data for potential future air bag rulemaking. An ongoing research program was created to look at the air bags by following the new procedures in FMVSS No. 208. This paper looks at the findings of the out-of-position (OOP) air bag testing involving the 6-year old and 5th percentile female dummies for the model year 2001 vehicles. For the covering abstract see ITRD E825082.
Abstract