Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Occupant Crash Protection

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This rule amends our occupant crash protection standard to require that future air bags be designed to create less risk of serious air bag-induced injuries than current air bags, particularly for small women and young children; and provide improved frontal crash protection for all occupants, by means that include advanced air bag technology. To achieve these goals, it adds a wide variety of new requirements, test procedures, and injury criteria, using an assortment of new dummies. It replaces the sled test with a rigid barrier crash test for assessing the protection of unbelted occupants. The issuance of this rule completes the implementation of our 1996 comprehensive plan for reducing air bag risks. It is also required by the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA 21), which was enacted in 1998. This rule will ensure that advanced air bag technologies are installed across the full spectrum of future fleets of motor vehicles. As a result, the air bags in those vehicles will be even more effective than the current redesigned air bags in saving lives. At the same time, those air bags will be much less likely than those redesigned air bags to cause deaths or serious injur