National Highway Traffic Safety Administration December 18, 2009 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice of proposed rulemaking is being issued in response to a petition from Bruno Independent Living Aids to expand and update existing exemptions to the ``make inoperative'' prohibition with respect to the Federal motor vehicle safety standard on head restraints. These exemptions are included in a regulation that provides exemptions for the ``make inoperative'' provision for, among other things, vehicle modifications to accommodate people with disabilities. NHTSA is proposing two substantive changes to the regulation. The first is to expand the exemption from the minimum height requirements listed in the head restraint standard to include the right front passenger position in addition to the driver position. The second is to update the exemption to include relevant provisions of a new version of the head restraint standard. Additionally, this document proposes to update an existing reference in the exemption to reflect the current numbering in the Code of Federal Regulations. Finally, we are denying other requests to expand the exemption to certain other requirements of the head restraint standard.