Comment on Followup on the vehicle "kill switch" mandated by the Infrastructure Bill
DemBoSain@midwest.social 8 months agoPersonal owners are allowed to do whatever the hell they want to their vehicles regarding Federal safety standards. Weld the doors shut, go ahead. Remove all the airbags, not a problem.
FMT99@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Remove seatbelts? Just curious how it is in the US
DemBoSain@midwest.social 8 months ago
There are about…50?..Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). The way the law is written, personal owners are allowed to disable any safety features mandated by these standards. But it’s illegal for one of those listed entities (manufacturers, dealers, rental places, and repair businesses) to do it. So, while you personally are allowed disable those items, you can’t bring your car to a repair business and have them do it for you.
But, there are also State Regulations to consider. The Federal government doesn’t force anybody to wear a seatbelt, they just require the car to have them when you buy it. The individual states regulate seatbelt use. While the Federal Regulations say you’re legally allowed to remove the seatbelts, most of (if not all) the State Regulations say you have to wear a seatbelt while driving.
That being said, there’s a mechanism for those listed entities to get an exemption, allowing them to disable safety features. Consider someone in a wheelchair. They have to get a car modified if they want to drive, and they’ll be unable to do it themselves. So they bring the car to someone that can handle the modifications (say they need to disable the airbag), and that business will send a request to NHTSA, and NHTSA will give them an exemption for one modified car to remove or disable the airbag.