National Highway Traffic Safety Administration September 2020 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), this notice announces that the Information Collection Request (ICR) abstracted below will be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval. The ICR describes the nature of the information collection and its expected burden. The information collection described in this document is for NHTSA's planned Automated Vehicle Transparency and Engagement for Safe Testing (AV TEST) Initiative, which involves the collection of voluntarily-submitted information from entities involved in the testing of vehicles equipped with automated driving systems (ADS) and from States and local authorities involved in the regulation of ADS testing. The purpose of this collection is to provide information to the public about ADS testing operations in the United States and applicable State and local laws, regulations, and guidelines. A Federal Register Notice with a 60-day comment period soliciting comments on the information collection was published on July 2, 2020 (85 FR 39975). NHTSA received 20 comments and a brief summary and NHTSA's response to those comments is provided in this document.

This document denies a petition for rulemaking from SafeGuard/ IMMI (formerly Indiana Mills and Manufacturing, Inc.) and C.E. White requesting that NHTSA amend Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 213, ``Child restraint systems,'' to provide for ``school bus built-in belt-positioning seats.'' Under the petitioners' suggested amendment, a school bus built-in belt positioning seat would be a type of ``booster seat'' and would consist of a school bus seat with a lap/ shoulder belt and a shoulder belt height adjuster. The agency is denying the petition because under the requested amendment, designs would be permitted that do not provide the full benefits of booster seats, namely the proper positioning of the child on the vehicle seat to improve the fit of the lap belt to mitigate the risk of abdominal injuries in a crash.