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Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 213 specifies requirements for child restraint systems used in motor vehicles and was first introduced by the National Highway Safety Bureau in 1971. In 1981, the standard was modified to require dynamic testing of child restraints. Over the following 21 years, Standard No. 213 was modified on numerous occasions, most recently in June of 2003. This paper outlines the history of Standard No. 213 with a discussion of the changes that have been proposed, the comments submitted to NHTSA in response to these proposed changes, and NHTSA's final decision (rule making) regarding which changes to adopt. Detailed discussion is included regarding NHTSA's May 2002 proposal to change the crash pulse, test dummies, injury criteria, and test bench required as part of the dynamic testing. The 2002 proposal also included expansion of the standard to cover child restraints for children weighing up to 65 pounds.

The performance of two types of forward facing child restraint systems (CRSs), belt-positioning boosters (BPBs) and CRSs with an integral 5-point harness were compared in frontal and side-impact testing. Performance criteria in frontal impacts (head injury criteria (HIC), chest acceleration, head excursion and knee excursion) was evaluated by comparing a large set of NHTSA-run FMVSS 213 compliance test data generated with the 3-year-old-sized anthropomorphic dummy (ATD). Side-impact performance was evaluated by conducting a series of sled tests and comparing the relative head excursion of a 3-year-old-sized ATD. FMVSS 213 compliance test data shows that the average HIC, chest acceleration, and head and knee excursions are comparable for BPBs and harness CRSs. ATDs in BPBs experienced a slightly higher average HIC, and a slightly lower average head excursion than ATDs in harness CRSs without a tether.

The role of seatback strength on occupant motion during rear-end collisions has been a focus of scientific investigation for decades. Despite being an integral component of the occupant restraint system, the role of seat belt restraints and the potential effect of various seat belt restraint system components, like pretensioners and latch plate design, on occupant motion and injury potential during rear-end collisions has received less attention. This study identifies and highlights what is currently understood about the role of seat belt restraints and components in rear-end collisions from the existing literature in detail for the first time. Previous studies that have investigated the role of pretensioning in occupant motion and loading did not provide detailed assessments of pretensioning effects on webbing loads and displacement, nor did they discuss the relationship between pretensioner deployment and latch plate design.