Interpretation ID: kiabag.nhf

Mr. Reymundo Mangahas
1441 South Ironwood Drive
Apache Junction, AZ 85220

Dear Mr. Mangahas:

This responds to your letter requesting permission to deactivate the knee air bag in your 1998 KIA Sportage. You explain that you are disabled and need to install hand controls in the vehicle to allow you to drive. In your letter, you state that the knee air bag interferes with the proper installation of the hand controls and needs to be deactivated. You also enclose a prescription for the hand controls from your doctor.

This letter provides the relief you seek. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will not institute enforcement proceedings against a commercial entity that deactivates the knee air bag to install hand controls on your vehicle to accommodate your condition. If you show this letter to your dealer or mechanic, you should be able to get this work performed.

We would like to explain that NHTSA is authorized to issue Federal motor vehicle safety standards that set performance requirements for new motor vehicles and items of motor vehicle equipment. Manufacturers are required to certify that their products conform to our safety standards before they can be offered for sale. After the first sale of the vehicle, manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and repair businesses are prohibited from "knowingly making inoperative" any device or element of design installed on or in a motor vehicle in compliance with an applicable standard. In general, the "make inoperative" prohibition (49 U.S.C. 30122) requires businesses which modify motor vehicles to ensure that they do not remove, disconnect, or degrade the performance of safety equipment installed in compliance with an applicable standard. Violations of this prohibition are punishable by civil penalties of up to $1,100 per violation.

Currently, there is no procedure by which businesses petition for and are granted permission from NHTSA to modify a motor vehicle. Businesses are permitted to modify vehicles without obtaining permission from NHTSA to do so, but are subject to the make inoperative provision of 49 U.S.C. 30122. In certain limited situations, we have exercised our discretion in enforcing our requirements to provide some allowances to a business which cannot conform to our requirements when making modifications to accommodate the special needs of persons with disabilities.

Standard No. 208, Occupant Crash Protection, requires vehicles to be equipped with specific manual and automatic restraint systems (e.g., seat belts and air bags) and to not exceed specified injury criteria during a test. We do not have information regarding how the occupant protection system without the knee air bag will perform in a crash. You may wish to ask Kia what effect removing or disconnecting the knee air bag may have on the vehicle, which may influence your decision to disconnect it. As noted above, in situations such as yours where a vehicle must be modified to accommodate the needs of a particular disability, we have been willing to consider violations of the "make inoperative" prohibition to be justified by public need. Accordingly, NHTSA will not institute enforcement proceedings against a business that removes the knee air bag to accommodate your condition.

We caution, however, that only necessary modifications should be made. In addition, your mechanic or dealer should consult with the manufacturer to determine how to disarm the knee air bag. The vehicle manufacturer should be able to provide information on how the modification can be safely performed. In addition, if the vehicle is sold, we urge you to advise the purchaser that the vehicle has been modified and consider reinstalling the removed safety equipment if appropriate. Finally, to improve occupant crash protection, we encourage you to use the vehicle's seat belts and to recommend that other drivers and passengers buckle up as well.

You may be interested to know that the agency is working on a proposal to regulate the aftermarket modification of vehicles for persons with disabilities by setting out exemptions from the make inoperative prohibition only for certain standards, including Standard 208, and under certain conditions. In place of the agency's current approach where each request for exemption from the make inoperative prohibition is reviewed case-by-case, this proposal would give clear guidance to modifiers about principles to follow when considering vehicle modifications to accommodate someone's disabilities. We published a notice of proposed rulemaking on September 28, 1998, in the Federal Register and are in the process of reviewing public comments.

If you have other questions or require additional information, please contact Nicole Fradette of my staff at this address or by phone at (202) 366-2992.

Sincerely,
Frank Seales, Jr.
Chief Counsel
ref:VSA
d.6/25/99