Comments on the Agency's Plan To Evaluate the Occupant Crash Protection Standard

Comments were provided on the Evaluation Plan for Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards 208. The review was limited to an overview of the potential for making the evaluation and of the data sources to be used in the evaluation plan. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposes to use three accident databases to evaluate the effectiveness of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208. Included are (1) the National Accident Sampling System (NASS); (2) the Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS); and (3) selected State accident data files. Of these three systems, the Safety Administration has the most confidence in NASS. Although NASS will be the primary data source for the overall plan and will be used to estimate the effectiveness of different automatic restraint systems, not enough data from that system will be available until late in the evaluation period for measurements of injury reductions and even later for measurements of fatality reductions. Meanwhile, FARS data and State accident data will be used to obtain initial effectiveness estimates and interim answers to some of the basic questions. The Safety Administration believes that the importance of Standards 208 demands that data collection on the worth of the standard should begin as soon as possible in spite of the fact that this information will be less detailed and less desirable. FARS will be used to provide interim answers of automatic restraint effectiveness in reducing fatalities. The FARS data file contains a census of all fatal traffic accidents which occur in the United States. The information in this data file is derived primarily from State accident report forms, supplemented with additional information made available by the States. Additionally, effectiveness estimates calculated from State data will be used initially to calculate the injury reduction effectiveness of the air bag system and the automatic belt system.