NTSB Press Release

National Transportation Safety Board
Office of Public Affairs

Summary of New Recommendations on Air Bags and Automobile Occupant Restraint Use (Subject to Editing)

June 10, 1997

On June 10, 1997, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) adopted a series of new recommendations on air bags and automobile occupant restraint use. The recommendations, which stem from a public forum, convened by the NTSB in March 1997, with the participation of representatives from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the automobile industry, air bag manufacturers, insurance, safety and consumer groups, family members involved in crashes in which air bags deployed, and automobile safety specialists from Australia, Canada and Europe, focus on safety improvements in four areas:

RECOMMENDATIONS

--to the Governors and the Legislatures of the 50 States, the U.S. Territories, and the Mayor and Chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia:

1. Enact legislation to require transporting children 12 years and under in a rear seat of a passenger vehicle if a rear seating position is available. The child should be restrained in accordance with the State's child restraint law.

2. Enact legislation that provides for primary enforcement of mandatory seatbelt use laws, including provisions such as the imposition of driver license penalty points and appropriate fines. Existing legal provisions that insulate people from the financial consequences of not wearing a seatbelt should be repealed.

3. Develop, in conjunction with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, uniform measurement procedures and tools for the States to use when conducting surveys on safety belt and child restraint use and revise the 1992 guidelines to ensure that a probability-based design is used to select a representative sample of the population.

4. Replace the current data collection systems (State surveys, crash data) with the uniform measurement procedures, tools, and sampling design plans to be developed and provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for obtaining safety belt and child restraint use rates.

5. Encourage and support efforts by enforcement organizations to conduct dedicated and highly visible occupant restraint enforcement programs that focus on increasing the use of seatbelts and child restraints.

6. Incorporate the standardized data collection/data elements guidelines for traffic crashes developed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, and the National Association of Governors' Highway Safety Representatives into your police accident reporting forms.


--to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, and the National Association of Towns and Townships:

7. Encourage and support efforts by enforcement organizations to conduct dedicated and highly visible occupant restraint enforcement programs that focus on increasing the use of seatbelts and child restraints.


--to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the State Association of Chiefs of Police, and the National Sheriff's Association:

8. Encourage your members to actively support efforts to adopt primary enforcement of seatbelt laws in States that do not have such legislation.

9. Encourage your members to conduct dedicated and highly visible occupant restraint enforcement programs that focus on increasing the use of seatbelts and child restraints.



--to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:

10. Develop and implement a set of crash test standards that utilize the currently available 5th percentile crash test dummy.

11. Develop and implement a set of vehicle crash test standards using biologically representative child dummies and appropriate injury criteria.

12. Develop and implement, in conjunction with the automobile industry, a comprehensive crash investigation program to evaluate the effectiveness of air bags. This program should provide for long- and short-term evaluation of variations in air bag designs, advanced air bag technologies, and various methods to deactivate air bags.

13. Develop, in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, data collection procedures and establish a database for recording all air bag-induced injuries identified by the medical community.

14. Revise the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and the National Automotive Sampling System to record specific information regarding the air bag equipment installed in the vehicle and its performance in the crash, such as the following: Did the air bag deploy, was it a depowered air bag, was there a cutoff switch, and was it on or off.

15. Develop guidelines for the collection of standardized data elements, including data fields for air bags, which will provide for better comparisons and evaluations of traffic crashes. Revise and update the guidelines as necessary. Provide these guidelines to the States.

16. Develop, in conjunction with the States, uniform measurement procedures and tools for the States to use when conducting surveys on seatbelt and child restraint use and revise the 1992 guidelines to ensure that a probability-based design is used to select a representative sample of the population. Provide this information to the States.

17. Evaluate, through public comment, the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) test procedures to determine (a) if the crash test procedures are counterproductive to development of air bag technology that is safe for all occupants, and (b) if the NCAP program provides consumers with the safety information they need to purchase a vehicle. If necessary, develop new methods for providing meaningful information to consumers on vehicle safety in high speed and other types of crashes.

18. Develop and implement, in conjunction with the domestic and international automobile manufacturers, a plan to gather better information on crash pulses and other crash parameters in actual crashes, utilizing current or augmented crash sensing and recording devices.



--to the Domestic and International Automobile Manufacturers:

19. Evaluate the effect of higher deployment thresholds for driver- and passenger-side air bags and then coordinate with NHTSA the modification of deployment thresholds based on the findings of the evaluation.

20. Develop and implement, in conjunction with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a comprehensive crash investigation program to evaluate the effectiveness of air bags. This program should provide for long- and short-term evaluation of variations in air bag designs, advanced air bag technologies, and various methods to deactivate air bags.

21. Develop and implement, in conjunction with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a plan to gather better information on crash pulses and other crash parameters in actual crashes, utilizing current or augmented crash sensing and recording devices.



--to the Newspaper Association of America, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and the National Newspaper Association:

22. Encourage your member associations and their member newspapers to report in articles about passenger vehicle crashes information on the use of seatbelts and child restraints, and the injury severity that results when seatbelts and child restraints are not used.

23. Encourage your member associations and their member newspapers to require that advertisers show adults wearing seatbelts properly and children in the back seat of passenger vehicles in size-appropriate child restraint systems.



--to the Motion Picture Association of America, the Entertainment Industries Council, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and the National Cartoonists Society:

24. Encourage your members to show adults wearing seatbelts properly and children in the back seat of passenger vehicles in size-appropriate child restraint systems unless obviously identified or depicted as high risk behavior.



--to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

25. Develop, in conjunction with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, data collection procedures and establish a database for recording all air bag-induced injuries identified by the medical community.

 

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The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent federal agency charged with determining the probable cause
of transportation accidents, promoting transportation safety, and assisting victims of transportation accidents and their families.