Opinion ID: 895280
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards

Text: Congress passed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 (Safety Act or Act), to reduce traffic accidents and their resulting injuries. Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass'n of U.S., Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 33, 103 S.Ct. 2856, 77 L.Ed.2d 443 (1983) (citing 15 U.S.C. § 1381 (1976) (current version at 49 U.S.C. § 30101)). Congress gave the Secretary of Transportation the authority to prescribe motor vehicle safety standards. Each standard shall be practicable, meet the need for motor vehicle safety, and be stated in objective terms. 49 U.S.C. § 30111(a). A motor vehicle safety standard is a minimum standard for motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment performance. Id. § 30102(a)(9). The Secretary of Transportation in turn delegated authority to create the safety standards to the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). 49 C.F.R. § 1.50. Over the years, NHTSA has promulgated and modified the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS), of which FMVSS 205 and 208 are at issue here. See id. §§ 571.205, .208.
In 1971, NHTSA issued FMVSS 208, which governed occupant crash protection and mandated seatbelts in motorcoaches for the driver only. See id. § 571.208, S4.4.1. [5] Two years later, NHTSA issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making addressing passenger seating in buses. Bus Passenger Seating and Crash Protection, 38 Fed.Reg. 4776 (Feb. 22, 1973) (to be codified at 49 C.F.R. pt. 571). NHTSA designed the proposed rules to protect bus passengers by requiring higher, stronger, and softer seats that contained the passengers during a crash. Id. In response to suggestions that seatbelts should be required, NHTSA proposed adding them as an alternate restraint system, replete with a detection system that warned the passenger and the driver of unfastened seatbelts. Id. The proposed rules were to affect all buses. The following year, however, NHTSA withdrew the proposed standard for motorcoaches, determining that seating requirements for intercity and transit buses were not justified from a cost/benefit standpoint, and that seatbelt-usage surveys in intercity buses indicated few passengers would utilize seatbelts if provided. See School Bus Passenger Crash Protection, 39 Fed.Reg. 27,585 (July 30, 1974). The NHTSA did indicate that it would propose standards in the future in this area if they are found desirable. Id. [6] MCI draws our attention to several other events of note. [7] In 1992, the chief counsel for NHTSA wrote a letter responding to an inquiry about New York legislation that would require seatbelts in motorcoaches. Letter from Paul Jackson Rice, Chief Counsel, NHTSA to C.N. Littler, Coordinator, Regulatory Affairs, Motor Coach Indus. (Aug. 19, 1992). He concluded that FMVSS 208 would preempt the New York legislation regarding, as relevant here, intercity buses weighing more than 10,000 pounds. He stated that NHTSA expressly determined that there is not a safety need for safety belts or another type of occupant crash protection at these [passenger] seating positions. In so opining, NHTSA's counsel expressly cited and relied upon the 1974 notice in which NHTSA withdrew its proposed standards for motorcoach seating and seatbelt standards, the latter because of low usage rates. In 2000, five years after the motorcoach here was built, NHTSA's acting administrator wrote a letter to the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which had repeatedly asked NHTSA to study the desirability of seatbelt standards for motorcoaches, noting that motorcoach crashes killed about five people per year. Letter from Rosalyn G. Millman, Acting Adm'r, NHTSA, to Jim Hall, Chairman, NTSB (Mar. 3, 2000). Even so, NHTSA said it would explore ways to study the crashworthiness of motorcoaches, including the feasibility and safety of seatbelts, in association with their manufacturers. Two years later, NHTSA announced a joint public meeting with its Canadian counterpart, Transport Canada, regarding the safety of motorcoaches. See Notice of Public Meeting on Motorcoach Safety Improvements, 67 Fed.Reg. 14,903 (Mar. 28, 2002). NHTSA invited comment on several proposed safety improvements, including limiting the size of glazing materials, introducing roof crush safety standards, requiring side curtain airbags, and requiring seatbelts. Id. at 14,904-05. Finally, in 2007, NHTSA issued a report recommending passenger seatbelts in motorcoaches following research designed to determine the best performance standards for the seatbelt assembly and seat anchorages. See NHTSA, Docket 2007-28793, NHTSA's APPROACH TO MOTORCOACH SAFETY 12-14. Based on this report, the Department of Transportation issued an action plan for motorcoach safety, in which it proposed to begin rulemaking to require seatbelts in motorcoaches. See U.S. DEP'T OF TRANSP., MOTORCOACH SAFETY ACTION PLAN 5 (2009). In August 2010, NHTSA followed up by publishing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that calls for three-point seatbelts for passenger seats in new motorcoaches. See Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Motorcoach Definition; Occupant Crash Protection, 75 Fed.Reg. 50,958 (Aug. 18, 2010) (to be codified at 49 C.F.R. pt. 571). [8]
FMVSS 205 specifies requirements for glazing materials for use in motor vehicles. 49 C.F.R. § 571.205, S1. It is intended to reduce injuries resulting from impact to glazing surfaces, to ensure a necessary degree of transparency in motor vehicle windows for driver visibility, and to minimize the possibility of occupants being thrown through the vehicle windows in collisions. Id. at S2. FMVSS 205 incorporates by reference the standards of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), specifically the standard for Safety Glazing Materials Z26.1 [hereinafter ANSI/SAE Z26.1-1996]. [9] Id. at S3.2(a). The parties do not dispute that the standard permitted several kinds of glazing materials, including, as relevant here, laminated or tempered glass, [10] and that MCI complied with the standard in manufacturing the subject bus. See ANSI/SAE Z26.1-1996, T.1 (Items 1 & 2) (permitting laminated glass throughout a vehicle and tempered glass anywhere other than the windshield). The ANSI standard notes that [o]ne safety glazing material may be superior for protection against one type of hazard, whereas another may be superior against another type. Since accident conditions are not standardized, no one type of safety glazing material can be shown to possess the maximum degree of safety under all conditions, against all conceivable hazards. Id. § 2.2. In 1988, NHTSA proposed advanced glazing requirements for passenger vehicles and received numerous comments questioning, among other things, whether this material would actually increase injuries to belted occupants due to head injury, neck loading, and lacerations. Withdrawal of Advance Notices of Proposed Rulemaking, 67 Fed.Reg. 41,365, 41,366 (June 18, 2002). In 1991, Congress mandated that NHTSA initiate rulemaking on rollover protection. Id. As part of this study, NHTSA focused on advanced glazing research as a possible method to reduce passenger ejections. Id. In 2001, Congress directed NHTSA to complete its study of glazing materials, and NHTSA issued a final report on the use of glazing materials to mitigate ejections. Id. at 41,367. Based on this report, NHTSA decided to terminate rulemaking on the issue of advance glazing, citing safety and cost concerns. Id. Noting the advent of other ejection mitigation systems (such as side air curtains) and the possibility that advanced side glazing increased the risk of neck injuries in some cases, NHTSA determined that its time and resources were better spent on other projects that focused on developing more comprehensive, performance-based test procedures. Id. In the 2007 report on motorcoaches, NHTSA emphasized the importance of roof strength because deformations following a crash compromise the window's ability to prevent ejections. See NHTSA's APPROACH TO MOTORCOACH SAFETY, supra, at 20. For that reason, NHTSA concluded that purs[u]ing the seat belt and roof strength approaches has greater potential for providing improved motorcoach occupant protection than continuing only the glazing/window retention strategy. Id. In sum, FMVSS 205 reflects NHTSA's conclusion that no one type of glazing material is superior in all situations, and it leaves to the manufacturers the decision of what kind of materialso long as it is one of the required kindsto use in a particular setting.