WASHINGTON, D.C.—NHTSA’s regulatory dance card is mighty full for the next five months, with a clutch of substantive rulemakings that includes developing a performance standard for full and partial ejection mitigation, restraints on motor coaches, boosters for older children and a rearward visibility standard – nearly all mandated by Congress.

The agency’s official shortlist, published in the Federal Register on July 1, contains several significant areas for immediate rulemaking ranging from occupant protection to regulations that would reduce deaths and injuries to children in and around vehicles. In the future, the agency will turn its attention toward possible rulemakings for crash avoidance technology, such as lane departure warning systems and automatic braking in advance of an impending crash.

Of course, making the list, which covers this year through 2011, doesn’t mean NHTSA will actually make it happen, but we’ve summarized the highlights below:

Rules for Children

Of the rulemakings regarding children, three were required by the Cameron Gulbransen Kids and Cars Safety Act of 2007. This measure, adopted after five years of intense lobbying, compels NHTSA to develop a rearward visibility standard, mandate a brake-to-shift-interlock and require power windows to have an automatic reverse feature. The bill was named after 2-year-old Cameron Gulbransen, who was killed when his father, a pediatrician from Long Island, inadvertently backed over him, because the blindzone behind his SUV made the toddler impossible to see.

In March, NHTSA published an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on establishing a rearward view standard in March. It did not outline a possible performance standard, but presented the research it had done to date and sought answers to 52 different questions in seven different areas, including the scope of the problem, technologies for improving rear visibility, effectiveness, driver behavior, options for measuring rear visibility and countermeasure performance. It expects to publish an NPRM this year, with a Final Rule in 2011.

NHTSA also expects to publish a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to consider requiring power windows to automatically reverse direction when, upon closing, the window detects an obstruction, to prevent children and others from being trapped, injured, or killed. Under the language of the law, the agency would have 18 months to initiate the process and 30 months to establish the standard. But, the provision allows the Secretary of Transportation to decline to make a rule requiring the feature, if the secretary determines “that no additional safety standards are reasonable, practicable, and appropriate.”

The brake to shift interlock (BTSI) is a safer regulatory bet. In 2006, the major automakers who comprise the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, Inc. attempted to head off legislation by announcing that its members had voluntarily committed to installing brake-to-shift interlocks by 2010. Safety advocates, however, were disturbed by the loopholes in the agreement. For one, manufacturers with new entries into the market, from China for example, would have no obligation to include a BTSI. Further, the agreement did not require the brake-to-shift interlock to work regardless of the key position, meaning that the BTSI might not work when the key is in the accessory position. Finally, advocates criticized the agreement because consumers wouldn’t know which vehicles did not have a BTSI. An NPRM is slated to be published this year.

The fourth rulemaking that could improve automotive safety for children is a scheduled Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to add requirements to FMVSS 213 Child Restraint Systems for booster seats for older children, and add a 10-year-old crash test dummy to the regulation. The agency has been working on this for four years. The most recent rulemaking was in January 2008, when NHTSA published an SNPRM that proposed seating procedures for positioning the Hybrid III 10-year-old child dummy and the HIII 6-year-old child dummy in booster seats when the dummies are used in the FMVSS 213 compliance tests.

Safety for the Rest of Us

The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) Act required the agency to publish a final rule establishing performance standards to reduce complete and partial ejections of vehicle occupants from outboard seating positions by October 1, 2009. The first phase of the agency’s effort was amending FMVSS 214 Side Impact in September 2007, to include a side-impact pole test. This rule had the effect of requiring side air curtains, at least for front seat passengers. According to an earlier plan, the second phase is to establish occupant containment performance requirements, which included the development of a test methodology to evaluate the performance of ejection mitigation systems, including side curtain airbags and improved glazing. The third phase is to establish performance requirements for rollover sensors, to ensure that the air bags will deploy in a rollover crash. The agency describes the rule thus: “This proposed standard would reduce the partial and total ejection of vehicle occupants through side windows in crashes, particularly rollover crashes.” There were few hints on how that would be accomplished.

After decades of buying the Motor Coach industry’s rap at retail, the agency is about to get serious about motor coach safety. Bus manufacturers have fended off regulations for decades, arguing that occupants were adequately protected from crash forces by compartmentalization – the space around them enclosed by the seat backs behind and in front of them and the side structure. The compartment, however, was open on three sides. The large picture windows tended to fail in a crash, leading to fatal ejections. In rollovers, occupants and their possessions are tossed right out of their compartments and sustain injuries from contact with the roof and other occupants. Performance standards for motor coaches in various crashes has been on the National Transportation Safety Board’s list for at least 11 years, but the agency has shown little interest beyond gathering the players for conferences in which industry representatives defended the status quo. At one such event, in 2002, then-Associate Administrator for Safety Standards Stephen Kratzke assured the industry that the agency wouldn’t promulgate any regulations – “just to do something.” Proposals would be based on “solid data,” he promised.

In the Future, We Just Won’t Crash

Looking ahead, NHTSA sees crash avoidance as the next frontier. It intends to focus its research on developing performance criteria and tests for systems that automatically apply the brakes when the vehicle senses an impending crash, lane departure warning systems and vehicle to vehicle communications systems. The pre-crash warning and brake assist technology is already offered on some Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Toyota and Ford vehicles. These systems use radar sensors to monitor the traffic in front of the vehicle, and if the distance between the vehicle and the one in front of it is too small, the driver receives a warning and the brakes may be primed for maximum power, or automatically applied. Other systems tighten the seat belts and activate the airbags, as well.

NHTSA has already developed a performance test for New Car Assessment Program that will debut for the 2011 model year. The agency expects to decide if it will require automatic crash-imminent braking.

Similarly, the agency plans to establish performance criteria and tests for lane departure warning systems, which have also debuted on Toyota, GM, Nissan, Honda and Mercedes vehicles. Again, NHTSA has already developed a performance test for the NCAP to apply to the 2011 model year. The next agency decision, scheduled for 2011, will be whether to require them.

Further into the future, NTSA is contemplating a technologically advanced automotive environment, in which vehicles communicate with one another to avoid collisions. Some prototype vehicle-to-vehicle communications systems send out speed, GPS location and braking information for crash avoidance, speed management, intersection collision avoidance and traffic congestion. These systems are in development among the major manufacturers. Vehicle-to-vehicle systems only work if a critical mass of the fleet is so-equipped. Last year, the European Union laid the groundwork of a widespread vehicle-to-vehicle communications landscape by reserving an EU-wide frequency band for automotive use. NHTSA forecasts that its next agency decision will be in 2013.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – After years of resisting, the National Highway Traffic Administration has published an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to amend the rearview mirror standard to actually include a performance standard for the rear view. The agency also solicited public comment on the state of current research and countermeasures that might assist it amending Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 111 to eliminate blind zones.

The March rulemaking did not outline a possible performance standard, but presented the research NHTSA had done to date. The agency sought answers to 52 questions in seven different areas, including the scope of the problem, technologies for improving rear visibility, effectiveness, driver behavior, options for measuring rear visibility and countermeasure performance.

The Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is the culmination of years of advocacy from groups such as KIDS AND CARS, which has been collecting news accounts and raising public awareness about the problem of backovers since 1998. In 2007, the organization’s lobbying led to the passage of the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act, also known as the K.T. Safety Act. The bill was named after 2-year-old Cameron Gulbransen, who was killed when his father, a pediatrician from Long Island, accidentally backed over him, because the blind zone behind his SUV made the toddler impossible to see.

The legislation required NHTSA to initiate a rulemaking within a year for a rearward visibility standard that would expand the required field of view to enable drivers to detect areas behind the motor vehicle. The standard could prescribe different requirements for different types of motor vehicles, which could be met by the addition of mirrors, sensors, cameras, or any other technology to expand the driver’s field of view. The bill required NHTSA to complete the rulemaking within three years of the date of enactment.

The law forced the agency to address a significant design flaw – especially in SUVs – which results in 3,000 incapacitating injuries and nearly 300 fatalities annually in backover incidents. (The agency noted that a disproportionate number of victims of backovers are children under 5 years old and adults 70 or older.) Previously, NHTSA declined to collect data on the problem, because most of these pedestrian-vehicle conflicts occurred in driveways and parking lots, rather than on public roads.

“We’re happy that NHTSA has met all the deadlines in the act and we really look forward to a regulation that will increase the visibility when you are backing up your vehicle,” says Janette Fennell, founder and president of KIDS AND CARS.

The sheer volume of questions is a good sign that the agency wants to take an in-depth look at all available information before crafting a standard, she added. But, Fennell said, buried in the text were some worrying signs. In the accompanying cost-benefit analyses, the agency considered different application scenarios, including applying it only to light trucks, based on data showing that pick-up trucks and SUVS were over represented in the injury and fatality data.

“I was surprised to see some sidestepping,” Fennell said. “We shouldn’t pick and choose. Whatever rear visibility standard is written, we need to ensure it covers all passenger vehicles.”

Backovers occur in incidents involving sedan-type vehicles more than 50 percent of the time, she said. Fennell was also disappointed that the agency research failed to consider the full range of economic benefits bestowed by a wider rear view.

“They totally ignored the cost savings from preventing bumper damage after you reduce the number of bushes, fences and poles people back into. That needs to be part of the calculation.”

The current standard, established in 1976, covers requirements for the use, field of view, and mounting of motor vehicle rearview mirrors for rear visibility and applies to passenger cars, multipurpose passenger vehicles, trucks, buses, school buses and motorcycles. What constitutes a performance standard for the view is based on Japanese regulation, Article 44, which merely requires that there be rearview mirrors that enable drivers to check the traffic around the left-hand lane edge and behind the vehicle from the driver’s seat. The regulation requires that the driver be able to ‘‘visually confirm the presence of a cylindrical object 1 m high and 0.3 m in diameter (equivalent to a 6-year-old child) adjacent to the front or the left-hand side of the vehicle (or the right-hand side in the case of a left-hand drive vehicle), either directly or indirectly via mirrors, screens, or similar devices.’’

As part of the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the agency presented some its research to date, which reached the startling conclusion that there is an association between the blind zone measured in a wide area and backing risk in crashes and that the larger the blind area, the higher the risk of a backing crash.

The agency has also evaluated some of the current rearview technology, often marketed as parking aids. The most expensive was the rearview camera, which was estimated to cost consumers between $159 and $203 per vehicle, or as low as $88 if the vehicle already has a display. NHTSA estimated the cost of equipping a 16.6 million vehicle fleet with camera systems is estimated at $2.3 to $3.0 billion. The net cost per equivalent life saved for camera systems, under different application scenarios, and at 3 and 7 percent discount rates, ranged from $13.8 to $72.2 million