"After many of the delays that auto-makers love, on August 15, 1973, Department of Transportation officials finally issued a new regulation requiring ignition interlocks on all new cars. There was now no need for airbags, so they dropped from the picture. During this two-year delay, however, Congress member Louis Wyman (R-N.H.) was preparing an amendment to the Motor Vehicle and School Bus Safety Act of 1974, which said, "Federal safety standards may not require that any vehicles be equipped with a safety belt interlock system." Some Hill staffers say Ford actually wrote the amendment. With a well-timed push from auto lobbyists, the amendment passed. The airbag and the ignition interlock were now both dead, victims of one of the most brilliantly executed double fixes in the history of lobbying."
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We note that our agency's previous experience with ignition interlocks indicates that great care must be taken in requiring vehicle modifications to induce higher belt use, to avoid consumer backlash. As of August 1973, Standard No. 208 required all new cars to be equipped either with automatic protection or an ignition interlock for both front outboard seating positions. General Motors sold about ten thousand of its 1974 model year cars equipped with air bags that met the automatic protection requirement. Every other 1974 model year car sold in the United States came with an ignition interlock, which prevented the engine from operating if either the driver or front seat outboard passenger failed to fasten their manual seat belt.
In a notice published in the Federal Register (39 FR 10272) on March 19, 1974, we described the public reaction to the ignition interlock as follows: "Public resistance to the belt-starter interlock system . . . has been substantial, with current tallies of proper lap-shoulder belt usage on 1974 models running at or below the 60% level. Even that figure is probably optimistic as a measure of results to be achieved, in light of the likelihood that as time passes the awareness that the forcing systems can be disabled, and the means for doing so will become more widely disseminated. . . ."
There were also speeches on the floor of both houses of Congress expressing the public's anger at the interlock requirement. On October 27, 1974, President Ford signed into law a bill that prohibited any Federal motor vehicle safety standard from requiring or permitting as a means of compliance any seat belt interlock system. In response to this change in the law, we published a final rule in the Federal Register (39 FR 38380) on October 31, 1974 that deleted the interlock option from Standard No. 208 effective immediately.
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DOT gave manufacturers a further choice for new vehicles manufactured between 1972 and August 1975. Manufacturers could either install a passive restraint device such as automatic seatbelts or airbags or retain manual belts and add an ?ignition interlock? device that in effect forced occupants to buckle up by preventing the ignition otherwise from turning on. 37 Fed. Reg. 3911 (1972). The interlock soon became popular with manufacturers. And in 1974, when the agency approved the use of detachable automatic seatbelts, it conditioned that approval by providing that such systems must include an interlock system and a continuous warning buzzer to encourage reattachment of the belt. 39 Fed. Reg. 14593. But the interlock and buzzer devices were most unpopular with the public. And Congress, responding to public pressure, passed a law that forbade DOT from requiring, or permitting compliance by means of, such devices. Motor Vehicle and Schoolbus Safety Amendments of 1974, §109, 88 Stat. 1482 (previously codified at 15 U.S.C. § 1410b(b) (1988 ed.)).
so there...