DEVELOPMENT OF IMPROVED INJURY CRITERIA FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF ADVANCED AUTOMOTIVE RESTRAINT SYSTEMS - II

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) plans for upgrading the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 208, frontal crash protection safety standard, include improving protection requirements for the normally seated mid-sized adult male, as well as including additional requirements that will specify performance limits to minimize the risks from airbags to small-sized occupants and children in both normal and out-of-position seating locations. These new crash specifications will require the use of additional dummies of various sizes as well as additional performance criteria that appropriately represent injury thresholds of these additional population segments. Based on the agency's analysis of comments received in response to the publication of the NPRM and the accompanying technical reports, the agency has made modifications to the recommended injury criteria and their associated performance limits. A detailed discussion of the comments received and the agency's analysis may be found in Appendix A. This report documents these modifications and the rationale.