Dear Ms. Zimmerman:
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
recognizes your concerns about placing your infant in front of
the passenger-side air bag of your Mazda Miata. Since your
vehicle has no back seat, NHTSA will grant an exemption to allow
the dealer or a repair business to deactivate the passenger-side
air bag. NHTSA is allowing this deactivation because an infant
in a rear-facing child restraint should never be placed in front
of an air bag and because it recognizes that you may be unable to
replace your vehicle with a car equipped with a back seat.
If it is possible to retrofit your car with the installation of a
manual cutoff switch, this option should be pursued rather than a
total deactivation of the air bag. Mazda should be able to tell
you if a manual cutoff switch is available for your vehicle.
If installation of a manual cutoff switch is not an option, you
may choose to have your passenger-side air bag deactivated.
Federal law now requires that new cars be equipped with air bags
at the front outboard seating positions. The Federal law also
prohibits dealers and repair businesses from knowingly making
inoperative devices, such as air bags, installed to comply with a
safety standard. However, in very limited situations in which a
vehicle must be modified to accommodate a person's special
physical needs, NHTSA has previously stated that it would
consider violations of the "make inoperative" provision as
technical and justified by public need, and that it would not
begin enforcement proceedings.
Since your vehicle does not have any back seat, NHTSA will consider the deactivation of the passenger-side air bag as a
technical violation of the "make inoperative" provision that is
justified by public need. Accordingly, it will not begin
enforcement proceedings against any dealer or repair business
which deactivates the passenger-side air bag.
Please note, however, that the purpose of the "make inoperative"
prohibition is to ensure, to the degree possible, that the
current and subsequent owners and occupants of a vehicle are not
deprived of the maximum protection afforded by the vehicle as
newly manufactured. Accordingly, we strongly encourage you to
have the air bag reactivated once your child is old enough to
ride safely in the front seat or when it is returned to the
company which leases it.
In addition, I strongly encourage you to ensure that passengers
in your vehicle use their safety belts and to tell them that the
passenger-side air bag has been deactivated.
I hope this letter resolves your problem. You should show this
letter to the dealer or repair business when you take your car in
for deactivation of the passenger-side air bag.
If you have any other questions, please contact Rebecca
MacPherson of my staff at this address or by phone at (202) 366-2992.
Sincerely,
John Womack
Acting Chief Counsel
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d:11/19/96