Bags or Belts

Automakers get the word

Deregulation of the much suffering U.S. auto industry has all along been a cherished goal of the Reagan Administration, which has vigorously attacked governmental bureaucrats and their safety standards as being major contributors to Detroit's maladies. But the Administration's ongoing effort to end what automen as well regard as officious federal meddling received a serious setback last week. That occurred when a federal appeals court in Washington ordered the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to reinstate a regulation requiring automakers to install air bags or automatic, self-buckling seat belts in their 1984-model cars.

The judicial ruling reversed a 1981 Administration move that rescinded a so-called passive-restraint requirement imposed earlier on the industry. Now the whole debate over the usefulness of air bags and self-buckling seat belts seems ready to flare back to life again.

The rule in question, issued in 1977 by the NHTSA under the Carter Administration, required the installation of automatic crash-protection gear starting with large-and medium-size automobiles as of this autumn. Not long after Ronald Reagan took office, NHTSA Administrator Raymond Peck postponed that deadline for a year, claiming that the Government needed more time to study the regulation. In addition, the agency was concerned about the auto industry's deepening financial troubles and was eager to help give automakers at least some relief from the added design and manufacturing costs that would have resulted from installing the restraints. Last October, after further consideration, Peck scrapped the rule entirely on the grounds that it failed to meet a legal criterion that safety standards be "reasonable, practicable and appropriate."

The move was promptly attacked by a coalition of outraged insurance companies and various consumer groups, which petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington to overturn the action taken by Peck and the NHTSA. The coalition told the court that passive restraints could save some 9,000 lives a year on the nation's roads and highways.

In June a three-judge panel ruled that the Government had acted "arbitrarily and capriciously" in repealing the regulation and gave the safety agency 30 days in which to substantiate its actions. When Peck failed to satisfy the court, it overruled the agency and ordered the enforcement of the passive-restraint rule to proceed.

In Detroit reaction among automakers ranged from cautious silence by General Motors to the assertion by a Chrysler Corp. official that there is "absolutely no way" in which the firm can equip its cars with the devices by 1983. Some automen complain as well that they have been caught in a pointless "protect against self syndrome, in which hundreds of millions of dollars may now have to be spent redesigning, retooling and testing to equip their cars with seat belts and air bags that drivers do not particularly want in the first place. Says Roger Maugh, director of auto safety for Ford: "We still feel that the best and most effective strategy is to get motorists to buckle up using the factory-installed seat belts for which they have already spent more than $14 billion over the years. When used, these belts provide overall safety as good as any passive device."

The NHTSA has until Oct. 1 to say whether automakers will be able to meet the September 1983 deadline. Meanwhile the agency is free to issue a new set of auto-safety standards, subject to court review. The other choices open to overturn the appeals-court ruling are to seek congressional legislation that would repeal the regulation and, more likely, to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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