Sample Owner Letter
U.S. Department of TransportationNational Highway Traffic Safety Administration
May 29, 1997
Mr.
Dear Mr.
This responds to your letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), asking whether you may have your driver-side air bag deactivated because of your medical condition. This letter grants your request.
Air bags are installed in cars and light trucks to help address the serious public health issue of motor vehicle related injuries. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for each age, 5 through 27 years old. Frontal crashes, where air bags are particularly effective, account for more than 60 percent of all fatalities and about 50 percent of all injuries in cars and light trucks. Airbags have saved more than 1,800 lives as of February 15, 1997, as well as a large number of head injuries. Airbags provide maximum protection to the belted occupant of any vehicle. In the vast majority of cases, adults are safer with an airbag.
The airbag was installed in conformity with a Federal motor vehicle safety standard that requires automatic occupant protection for front seat occupants. Under Federal law, dealers and motor vehicle repair businesses normally are prohibited from deactivating components that have been installed to comply with such safety standards. However, in accordance with our policy of allowing deactivation for certain medical conditions, NHTSA will not enforce this provision against any dealer or repair business that deactivates the driver-side airbag in your vehicle. This means that the dealer or repair business would not be subject to Federal civil penalties for deactivating that airbag. However, it does not mean that the dealer or repair business is under any obligation to perform the deactivation. The decision whether to perform a deactivation belongs to each dealer or repair business.
You should show this letter to your dealer or repair business when you take your vehicle to have the airbag deactivated. We understand that some dealers and repair businesses have a policy of not performing deactivations. Accordingly, you may wish to check with a variety of dealers and repair businesses regarding their policy.
If you have your air bag deactivated, your seat belts will be your only available restraint in a crash. Thus, it will be more important than ever for you to use the belts at all times. In addition, because of the safety benefits provided by air bags to the vast majority of drivers, we strongly urge you to have the air bag reactivated before selling your vehicle. Otherwise, please be sure to inform the new owner that the air bag has been deactivated.
NHTSA has recently proposed a regulation that would permit a vehicle owner to have an airbag deactivated without first asking the Federal government for permission. If a dealer or repair business performed a deactivation, that proposal would require the attaching of warning labels to the vehicle to assure that all occupants are aware that the airbag is not operational. If this proposal is adopted as a final rule, we will send you labels and request that you attach them. In addition, at that time, we will ask you to provide information about the deactivation of your airbag so that records can be maintained for the benefit of subsequent owners.
If you have any further questions, please send them to this office at this address, or FAX them to us at (202) 366-3820.