On November 24, 2010 NHTSA published a notice in the Federal Register at 75 FR 71648 proposing to amend FMVSS 213 regarding a Hybrid III 10 year old test dummy that the agency seeks to use in the compliance test procedures of the standard. This notice (an SNPRM) supplements a 2005 NPRM and a 2008 SNPRM previously published in this rulemaking. In the 2005 NPRM, in response to Anton's Law, NHTSA proposed to adopt the 10-year-old child test dummy into FMVSS 213 to test child restraints for older children. Subsequently, to address variation that was found in dummy readings due to chin-to-chest contact, NHTSA published the 2008 SNPRM to propose a NHTSA-developed procedure for positioning the test dummy in belt-positioning seats. Comments on the SNPRM objected to the positioning procedure, and some suggested an alternative procedure developed by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI). This latest SNPRM proposes to use the UMTRI procedure to position the test dummy rather than the NHTSA-developed procedure. In the notice, NHTSA states that the 10-year-old child dummy may sometimes experience stiff contact between its chin and upper sternal bib region which may result in an unrealistically high value of the head injury criterion (HIC)referenced in the standard. As a result, NHTSA is proposing that the dummy's HIC measurement will not be used to assess the compliance of the tested child restraint. The SNPRM also proposes other amendments to FMVSS 213, including a proposal to permit NHTSA to use, at the manufacturer's option, the Hybrid II or Hybrid III versions of the 6-year-old test dummy, and a proposal to use the UMTRI procedure to position the Hybrid III 6-year-old and 10-year-old dummies when testing belt-positioning seats.
Comments on the SNPRM are due January 24, 2011, however, comments on NHTSA reinstating a provision in FMVSS 213 that permitted NHTSA to use, at the manufacturer's option, the Hybrid II or Hybrid III versions of the 6-year-old dummy in compliance testing should be received by December 24, 2010.