A request by the Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA) to delay new seat belt rules has received the support of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which has kicked off a federal rulemaking on the proposal.
In a notice published late last month in the Federal Register, the NHTSA said it is backing the EMA’s request to push back a compliance date for the regulation in seat belt assembly anchorages to September 1, 2030 from the original compliance date of September 1, 2027.
However, the delay would apply only for vehicles in excess of 10,000 pounds. For vehicles less than that, the 2027 date remains in effect. A third category–“multi-stage manufacturers and alterers of vehicles less than 10,000 pounds”–would be September 1, 2028.
The initial final rule on the seat belt assembly anchorages was published in September 2024.
The NHTSA is taking comments on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) until July 27.
According to the Federal Register notice posted by the NHTSA, the final rule published in September 2024 “amended the procedures for testing the strength of seat belt anchorages by clarifying the positioning of the test device currently specific in the standard.”
The 2024 rule also added an optional test device as another route for certification.
Testing ‘body blocks’
The rules on the seat belt anchorages are in the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS). In turn, the 2024 final rule contained amendments promulgated by NHTSA as a result of a court case between the agency and Chrysler over the positioning in testing of a “body block.”
A body block is not the same as a crash test dummy, but both are used in the testing process.
Testing of the anchorages, according to the proposed NHTSA rule, are needed to “ensure the anchorages are strong enough to remain attached to the vehicle structure in a crash.”
The 2024 final rule redefined the procedures manufacturers needed to follow in placing body blocks in a vehicle being tested.
EMA petitioned for reconsideration
But that final rule spurred a “petition for reconsideration” from the EMA. That petition, according to the Federal Register announcement, landed on November 1, 2024. The NPRM recently published in the Federal Register is the outcome of that EMA petition.
That EMA petition was driven in part by the fact that testing for the 2024 rule had been done on light passenger vehicles.
The EMA petition, according to the NHTSA, says that the changes in the FMVSS section “could pose significant challenges for heavy-duty vehicle manufacturers due to the unique designs, long lifecycles and diverse configurations of their vehicles, which EMA states differ greatly from light passenger vehicles.”
According to the NPRM, the EMA wanted the exclusion for vehicles over 10,000 pounds “pending further research to ensure the rule is practicable for those vehicles.”
EMA believes, according to the NPRM, that the new rules on the positioning of body blocks in testing “impose a significant compliance burden.”
‘Unforeseen challenges’
Its petition found a sympathetic audience at NHTSA, which says in the NPRM that the agency “recognizes the potential for unforeseen challenges and re-evalaution costs for heavy-duty vehicle manufacturers.”
“The proposed changes in compliance dates for heavy-duty vehicles would not result in additional costs; any additional costs associated with compliance would simply
be delayed,” the NPRM says.
The EMA had not responded to an email by FreightWaves by publication time, nor had it posted a reaction to the support of the NHTSA on its webpage.
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