Loosening Seat Belt Safety Rules

Just as the popularity of sport utility vehicles was accelerating, along with lawsuits over deaths in rollover crashes, government regulators dropped a key part of a seat belt standard that might have helped to better protect drivers and passengers.

The requirement -- that seat belts “remain on the pelvis under all conditions, including collision or rollover of the motor vehicle” -- was deleted in 1999 after automakers complained that the 1967 regulation was vague and unenforceable, records and interviews show.

Even as it grapples with new data showing that seat belts may not adequately protect people in rollover crashes, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it stands by its decision to cut the section.

“As far as we are concerned, this deletion has not compromised public safety,” spokesman Rae Tyson said in a recent interview.

Critics disagree. “There is no other requirement in the safety belt rules that addresses belt performance in rollover crashes,” said Joan Claybrook, president of the Public Citizen advocacy group. “That is a real issue, because belts do not work well in rollover crashes.”

The fate of the seat belt rule demonstrates how safety regulations can live or die in the details of technical language that often is the target of aggressive lobbying. Consumer groups and plaintiffs’ lawyers viewed the rule as a valuable tool to help ensure auto safety, but federal regulators agreed with manufacturers that the rule was not enforceable.

The industry also was concerned about getting sued, agency records show. One industry group wrote to NHTSA objecting that the seat belt requirement imposed “unconscionable societal costs” because of the expense of defending lawsuits alleging that belts had failed.

Critics say that instead of deleting key language, NHTSA should have toughened the rules, part of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 209.

NHTSA now says it is “looking very seriously” at upgrading its seat belt requirements, Tyson said, in conjunction with mandating stronger vehicle roofs and other measures to deal with mounting deaths in rollovers.

Seat belts have been primarily designed for head-on collisions, and can become loose in a rollover, according to government and industry experts. SUVs, with their higher centers of gravity, have proven more vulnerable to rollover accidents. Automakers say they are also working on new technology to ensure that seat belts offer greater protection in rollovers.

Earlier statistics had pointed to a pattern of carelessness among rollover victims, with a high proportion failing to buckle up. But that no longer seems accurate.

A recent study by researchers from George Washington University and NHTSA found that nearly 40% of those seriously injured or killed in a large sample of rollover crashes were wearing seat belts. And a government survey released last week found that people in SUVs -- along with those in vans -- are the likeliest to use seat belts, with 83% buckling up.

Mary Beth Arcidiacono is among them. A self-described “neurotic about safety,” she put her family in an SUV because she believed “bigger is better.”

On Aug. 8, 1998, Arcidiacono was driving her four children on a Colorado interstate when she lost control of her Chevrolet Suburban. It rolled four times.

The Arcidiaconos were all buckled in, but 13-year-old John was ejected and killed. Christopher, then 11, also was ejected and suffered a brain injury, the effects of which he’s still striving to overcome. The family sued General Motors.

The company entered into a confidential financial settlement with the family, but admitted no liability. The family’s lawyer, Ron Franklin, said he based his case partly on Standard 209 -- which was in effect when their Suburban was built.

At the time of Arcidiacono’s accident, the effort by the auto industry to repeal key language in the standard was already well underway.

The industry objected to a section that read: “A seat belt assembly shall provide pelvic restraint ... and the pelvic restraint shall be designed to remain on the pelvis under all conditions, including collision or rollover of the motor vehicle.”

In 1991, H. George Johannessen, a technical expert with the American Occupant Restraints Council, wrote to NHTSA objecting that the section was too subjective and requesting a ruling that it not be a requirement, but merely “a design goal.”

Johannessen, whose organization represents seat belt manufacturers, said the government had failed to set forth a test procedure to determine compliance. Standard 209 was also causing big problems in court, he added.

“Unfortunately, positioning of the seat belt off the pelvis ... has been cited in recent litigation as prima facie evidence that the seat belt does not comply with the federal standard and ... is defective,” Johannessen wrote. “The need to refute the allegations of design defect ... leads to unnecessary expenditure of time and effort, and unconscionable societal costs.”

Indeed, trial lawyers say the requirement had become a potent weapon. “We always used the language under 209 as a sword,” said Tab Turner, an Arkansas lawyer who built a national reputation suing automakers in rollover cases. “They took it out of the rules to keep us from being able to use it against them in the courts, not because it wasn’t a good design criteria.”

Johannessen, now retired, said in an interview that a lap-belt’s ability to work in all types of crashes would be “a very desirable attribute.” The problem was that the government had failed to spell out a test for manufacturers to evaluate their products.

Without a federal test, manufacturers devise their own. But in court, internal tests may not carry the same weight as those mandated by NHTSA.

As for lawsuits, Johannessen said: “We attempt as an industry to head them off. Whether a claim is petty or not, the [defense] attorneys have to go to a lot of effort.... It implies a lot of costs.”

Johannessen’s request was rebuffed. “We cannot agree with your suggestion that [the language of Standard 209] is merely a hortatory design goal,” NHTSA lawyer Stephen P. Wood wrote in a ringing defense of the standard.

While conceding that there was no specific test, Wood said the standard required that lap belts be designed to fit all sizes of people and be able to restrain them during crashes or rollovers. A single failure would not necessarily indicate a faulty design, he wrote, but NHTSA “might well investigate” a pattern of problems.

“A belt system that was not capable of being positioned on the pelvis and remaining there during crashes would not comply,” added Wood, who still works for NHTSA and declined to be interviewed.

In 1996, the industry again took on Standard 209. But circumstances had changed.

NHTSA was preoccupied with reforming an air bag standard that inadvertently led to powerful devices that killed children and small women. And President Clinton had directed federal agencies to eliminate unnecessary or redundant rules as part of his Regulatory Reinvention Initiative.

The Assn. of International Automobile Manufacturers petitioned NHTSA, contending that the seat belt requirement should be eliminated under the Clinton policy.

The group said the language in Standard 209 was confusing. Other standards more specifically detailed how belts should fit and work in frontal crashes, it said. But those other standards do not establish any mandatory requirements for rollovers. The petition did not mention litigation.

“The industry objected to a nonobjective requirement,” said George Parker, who as the association’s vice president for engineering affairs helped draft the petition.

Before joining the industry, Parker had worked at NHTSA for more than 27 years, with stints as head of enforcement and head of research. Now retired, Parker said the main problem with the requirement was the lack of a federal test that all manufacturers could measure themselves against.

“I believe the agency should have had an objective standard instead of leaving it wide open,” he said.

Abandoning its previous defense of Standard 209, NHTSA embraced the industry position.

“The meaning of the words ‘remain on the pelvis’ is unclear,” the agency said in a 1997 filing. “Thus, the requirement appears to be unenforceable in its current form and is a candidate for regulatory reform.”

“I’m not sure why the agency switched positions,” said Henry Jasny, general counsel of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a consumer-oriented group. “They could have made some effort to meet the concerns by designing a test.”

Jasny’s group, joined by the National Transportation Safety Board, urged NHTSA at the time to keep the language and do more testing to develop a more effective standard. Jasny recommended research on how well belts worked in rollovers.

NHTSA was not persuaded.

“The reason it was deleted is there was no way to test it,” said Robert Shelton, NHTSA’s head of safety standards at the time. “It was unenforceable.” Shelton, who has since left the agency, declined to comment further.

Parker, the industry expert, said much less was known about rollovers when the decision was made. “There probably wasn’t the sensitivity to rollovers at the time,” he said.