Interpretation ID: nht74-4.47

DATE: 01/03/74

FROM: AUTHOR UNAVAILABLE; James B. Gregory; NHTSA

TO: Volkswagen

TITLE: FMVSS INTERPRETATION

TEXT: Your letter of October 30, 1973, raises several questions about the present requirements of Standard 208 and its future course, and you suggest modifications of its vehicle loading and the lateral impact requirements to make the standard "representative of real world conditions." You state that leadtime is critical and this consideration compels you to raise specific questions.

The August 15, 1975, date for fully passive systems under Standard 208 was established March 10, 1971. Manufacturers will have had over four years of leadtime to study and design systems to meet the 208 crash protection requirements, or in the alternative to petition for rulemaking to amend them. While a decision to modify elements of Standard 208 is pending within the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, I can assure you that sufficient additional leadtime would be given to develop systems that conform, if such a course were found necessary.

I would recommend against an attempt to predict the future of Standard 208 from a reading of other proposed standards. While our desire is to reduce the complexity and cost of testing by making simultaneous barrier testing to several standards possible, complications such as you point out make the realization of this goal uncertain. You have suggested specific changes in vehicle loading and lateral crash test requirements of Standard 208. We request that these suggestions be proposed as petitions under 49 CFR Part 553.31 to amend the standard if this is your intent. Your petition to permit use of passive belt systems, for example, has been acted on under this procedure.

Sincerely yours,

The Honorable Administrator Dr. Gregory National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

October 30, 1973

Dear Dr. Gregory:

The preamble to docket 73-8, notice 2 (part 572 - Anthropomorphic Test Dummy, and amendment to MVSS 208) states that:

(a) The specified part 572 test dummy is to be used only for compliance testing of passive restraint systems installed in vehicles manufactured during the time period August 15, 1973, to August 14, 1975.

(b) The question of restraint system requirements to be in effect after August 15, 1975, will be the object of future rulemaking action, and the agency will not make any final decision regarding reinstatement of mandatory passive restraint requirements without further notice and opportunity for comment, and

(c) should the agency propose mandatory passive restraint requirement the question of conformity of a suitable dummy will again be open for comment.

The status of the rulemaking for mandatory passive restraints and a suitable dummy for testing these restraints is of extreme importance to Volkswagen. We must know the direction the NHTSA is taking in this matter so that our development work can address the real future requirements. Since leadtime is critical and we have not yet seen the expected rulemaking, we are compelled to raise the following questions:

1. Will the installation of mandatory passive restraint systems be required as of August 15, 1975, or at some later date?

2. Can you please clarify the inconsistency between the statement in the preamble(Illegible Word) docket 73-8, notice 2, that dummy conformity after August 15, 1975, will again be open for comment, and the statement in docket 73-20, notice 1 (fuel for testing after September 1, 1975? (The preamble to docket 73-20, notice 1, suggests that vehicles would be tested under both MVSS 208 and MVSS 301 simultaneously.)

3. If passive restraints become mandatory, will they be required at all seating positions, or only front seating positions? (Again, noting that the preamble to docket 73-20, notice 1 suggests simultaneous testing for MVSS 208 and MVSS 301, S 6.1 of that notice proposes that test dummies be installed only in each front outboard seating position. This could lead to the conclusion that for future rulemaking for MVSS 208, the injury criteria requirements would only be measured for the front outboard seating positions in frontal impacts, and no passive restraint system would be required for the rear seats. Volkswagen has previously commented on the unfavorable cost/ benefit ratio for rear seat passive restraints due to their infrequent occupancy.)

4. MVSS 208 requires a very high loading of the test vehicle. We feel that these loading conditions are not representative of real world conditions. Typically, an automobile has only one or two passengers, and no luggage in the trunk. Since the future requirements for passive restraints will be the subject of further rulemaking, could the NHTSA re-evaluate the test loading requirements and address this point in the rulemaking proposal?

5. MVSS 208 requires that the moving barrier has to have a vertical, rigid, flat rectangular impact surface 78 inches wide and 60 inches high with its lower edge five inches above the ground surface. Thus, the upper edge is 65 inches above the ground surface which is much higher than the front end of any american or imported passenger car.

In lateral barrier impact tests according to MVSS 208 with our current models, our test engineers observed that the dummies adjacent to the barrier impact surface hit the rigid barrier surface with their heads, obtaining very high injury criteria.

Up to now we have not found means to solve this problem. The use of laminated glass for the side windows, for example, did not show better results, because any available crush distance is already used up by the high barrier when the dummies' head impact the windows. As the recent barrier does not represent the front end of a typical car and the injury criteria depends greatly on the barrier height, we feel that paragraph S 8.2.2 of MVSS 208 is unrealistic. We suggest to specify the barrier face as in SAE J 972a. Other barriers for lateral impact such as the barrier established by ECE have even lower or equal upper edges of the impact surface.

Since this barrier height problem is especially critical to our small vehicles, and "Safety Standards shall take into consideration different classes of vehicles, such as small cars" (as recognized by the sixth circuit court of appeals in the Air Bag case), could the NHTSA re-evaluate the need for such a high barrier face and address this point in future rulemaking on passive restraints?

Your answers to each of our questions would be appreciated as soon as possible, so that we can continue our development work for restraint systems after August 15, 1975, with a clear understanding of NHTSA requirements.

Yours truly,

E. Fiala