The Helmet Update
Volume 16, Issue 1e - January 21, 1998
BHSIDOC#590
All issues index
CPSC Briefed on Draft Standard
Summary: The staff of the Consumer Product Safety Commission briefed the three
Commissioners today on the final draft of the CPSC bicycle helmet standard. This standard will become U.S. law one year
after publication in the Federal Register. The Commission will take its vote on February 5th.
The Briefing
Scott Heh, CPSC's principal staffer on helmets, conducted the briefing, covering
the background, provisions of the proposed rule, changes from the earlier drafts, comments received and staff
recommendations. He did a competent job, and the Commissioners asked good questions that brought out additional points,
indicating a lot of prior orchestration. The only thing disconcerting to us about the presentation was a series of
comments on how the CPSC standard would "replace the current alphabet soup of standards with one uniform standard."
Normally CPSC avoids replacing voluntary standards. We think they were referring to the Interim Rule that Congress
required them to issue, which approved seven voluntary standards for use until this one is final. In this case, the ASTM
and Snell standards will probably continue to be used, particularly the ASTM infant-toddler standard which will designate
what we consider to be a better child helmet than CPSC's does.
CPSC's main unresolved issue relates to children's helmets. Earlier drafts had special provisions for infant-toddler
helmets to lower the acceptable g's in the lab crashes to 250 and lower the weight of the smallest-sized headforms. Those
provisions have been eliminated in this draft, and child helmets will be tested using a small headform weighted the same
as the larger adult sizes (5 kg) and testing to the 300 g standard used for adult helmets. Those in the standards
community--including us--who believe that the foam in infant helmets is too stiff at present are not pleased with this
retreat. Bell had Jim Sundahl send a letter on the subject, which was faxed to Scott Heh last night. The Commissioners
had seen the letter. Heh promised them a memo with his analysis before they have to vote on the standard.
The most significant new development at this meeting was the first public announcement, made by a representative of the
General Counsel's office, that CPSC can amend this standard under the same administrative rules as those under which it
was adopted. Congress had specified in the legislation that directed CPSC to adopt the standard that it was not to be
done under the normal CPSC constraints requiring a finding of no interference with voluntary standards, a finding of no
economic hardship, an environmental impact finding and other lengthy process steps. But it was not clear until today that
the standard can be updated with the same streamlined procedures, and that was welcome news to those who understand how
helmet standards are evolving.
The CPSC staff has already drafted the
Federal Register notice that will begin the one year wait for the standard
to take effect. To permit manufacturers to begin certifying to the CPSC standard immediately they are adding it to the
seven standards (ASTM, ANSI, Snell, etc--the Alphabet Soup) already approved as interim standards. So you should begin
seeing CPSC stickers in helmets from the quicker companies with the better helmets that already meet the standard very
shortly. When it takes effect the standard will become the law of the land, and failure to meet it may have
serious legal consequences,
There was no public comment allowed at the end of this meeting, which is most unusual for CPSC. We took that as an
indication that the Commission did not want to get into the technical issues posed by the Bell letter. At the end of the
meeting Chairman Ann Brown announced that the Commissioners would meet on January 28th to vote. (The next week the
meeting was postponed until February 5th.) She and the other Commissioners were very complimentary to Scott Heh and the
staff for a job well done. With that sort of approval we would expect them to approve Scott's draft unchanged.
We have
a full copy of the draft standard and other materials from today's briefing package up
and
our analysis of it. We also have testlab wizard
Jim Sundahl's
letter up.
Next
We will report again when the Commission meets on February 5th, hopefully with the expected
date of publication in the
Federal Register that starts the clock ticking.
The Helmet Update - Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute
Randy Swart, Editor
4611 Seventh Street South
Arlington, VA 22204-1419 USA
(703) 486-0100 (voice)
(703) 486-0576 (fax)
www.helmets.org