II
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION S. 161
To require the Secretary of Transportation to issue rules relating to the
testing procedures used under the New Car Assessment Program of
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and for other pur-
poses.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
JANUARY21, 2025
Mrs. F
ISCHER(for herself, Mrs. MURRAY, Mrs. BLACKBURN, and Ms.
D
UCKWORTH) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and re-
ferred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
A BILL
To require the Secretary of Transportation to issue rules
relating to the testing procedures used under the New
Car Assessment Program of the National Highway Traf-
fic Safety Administration, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘She Develops Regula-4
tions In Vehicle Equality and Safety Act’’ or the ‘‘She 5
DRIVES Act’’. 6
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SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS. 1
In this Act: 2
(1) C
RASHWORTHINESS.—The term ‘‘crash-3
worthiness’’ has the meaning given the term in sec-4
tion 32301 of title 49, United States Code. 5
(2) S
ECRETARY.—The term ‘‘Secretary’’ means 6
the Secretary of Transportation. 7
(3) T
ESTING DEVICE.—The term ‘‘testing de-8
vice’’ means a testing device used for compliance 9
testing of motor vehicles and motor vehicle equip-10
ment with respect to Federal motor vehicle safety 11
standards that is described in part 572 of title 49, 12
Code of Federal Regulations (or successor regula-13
tions). 14
SEC. 3. FEDERAL MOTOR VEHICLE SAFETY STANDARDS UP-15
DATES. 16
(a) F
RONTIMPACTS.— 17
(1) I
N GENERAL.—Not later than 15 days after 18
the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary 19
shall revise parts 571 and 572 of title 49, Code of 20
Federal Regulations (or successor regulations), to 21
include the following: 22
(A) 50th percentile adult male Test Device 23
for Human Occupant Restraint (THOR) frontal 24
impact testing device. 25
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•S 161 IS
(B) 5th percentile adult female Test De-1
vice for Human Occupant Restraint (THOR) 2
front impact testing device. 3
(2) F
RONT IMPACT FINAL RULES .— 4
(A) I
N GENERAL.— 5
(i) THOR-
50M.—Not later than 180 6
days after the date of enactment of this 7
Act, the Secretary shall issue a final rule 8
to require the use of the testing device de-9
scribed in paragraph (1)(A) into parts 571 10
and 572 of title 49, Code of Federal Regu-11
lations (or successor regulations). 12
(ii) THOR-
05F.— 13
(I) P
ROPOSED RULEMAKING .— 14
Not later than 60 days after the date 15
of enactment of this Act, the Sec-16
retary shall issue a notice of proposed 17
rulemaking to require the use of the 18
testing device described in paragraph 19
(1)(B) into parts 571 and 572 of title 20
49, Code of Federal Regulations (or 21
successor regulations). 22
(II) F
INAL RULE.—Not later 23
than 120 days after the date of enact-24
ment of this Act, the Secretary shall 25
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issue a final rule to require the use of 1
the testing device described in para-2
graph (1)(B) into parts 571 and 572 3
of title 49, Code of Federal Regula-4
tions (or successor regulations). 5
(B) R
EQUIREMENTS.—In issuing the final 6
rules under clauses (i) and (ii)(II) of subpara-7
graph (A), the Secretary shall— 8
(i) establish or update the injury cri-9
teria, including the head, neck, chest, ab-10
domen, pelvis, upper leg, and lower leg in-11
jury criteria, for the testing devices de-12
scribed in subparagraphs (A) and (B) of 13
paragraph (1) based on real world injuries 14
and the greatest potential to increase safe-15
ty; and 16
(ii) establish crashworthiness frontal 17
impact tests with those testing devices for 18
adult female occupants in all designated 19
front seating positions tested, as of the 20
date of enactment of this Act, for adult 21
male occupants. 22
(C) N
EW CAR ASSESSMENT PROGRAM UP -23
DATE.— 24
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(i) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall 1
promulgate a final decision notice to up-2
date the testing procedures used to test the 3
crashworthiness of passenger motor vehi-4
cles under the New Car Assessment Pro-5
gram of the National Highway Traffic 6
Safety Administration to require the use of 7
the testing devices described in subpara-8
graphs (A) and (B) of paragraph (1). 9
(ii) T
IMING.— 10
(I) I
N GENERAL.—The final deci-11
sion notice required under clause (i) 12
shall be promulgated concurrently 13
with the issuance of the final rule re-14
quired under subparagraph (A)(i) if 15
the Secretary determines that promul-16
gating the final decision notice con-17
currently with the final rule required 18
under that subparagraph does not 19
delay issuance of that final rule. 20
(II) D
ELAY.—If the Secretary 21
determines under subclause (I) that 22
promulgating the final decision notice 23
concurrently with the final rule re-24
quired under subparagraph (A)(i) 25
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•S 161 IS
would delay the issuance of that final 1
rule, the Secretary shall issue that 2
final rule before promulgating the 3
final decision notice required under 4
this subparagraph. 5
(b) S
IDEIMPACTS.— 6
(1) I
N GENERAL.—Not later than 18 months 7
after the date of enactment of this Act, the Sec-8
retary shall revise parts 571 and 572 of title 49, 9
Code of Federal Regulations (or successor regula-10
tions), to include the following: 11
(A) 50th percentile adult male Worldwide 12
Harmonized Side Impact Dummy side impact 13
testing device. 14
(B) 5th percentile adult female Worldwide 15
Harmonized Side Impact Dummy side impact 16
testing device. 17
(2) S
IDE IMPACT FINAL RULE.— 18
(A) I
N GENERAL.— 19
(i) P
ROPOSED RULEMAKING .—Not 20
later than 2 years after the date of enact-21
ment of this Act, the Secretary shall issue 22
a notice of proposed rulemaking to require 23
the use of the testing devices described in 24
subparagraphs (A) and (B) of paragraph 25
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(1) into parts 571 and 572 of title 49, 1
Code of Federal Regulations (or successor 2
regulations). 3
(ii) F
INAL RULE.—Not later than 30 4
months after the date of enactment of this 5
Act, the Secretary shall issue a final rule 6
to require the use of the testing devices de-7
scribed in subparagraphs (A) and (B) of 8
paragraph (1) into parts 571 and 572 of 9
title 49, Code of Federal Regulations (or 10
successor regulations). 11
(B) R
EQUIREMENTS.—In issuing the final 12
rule under subparagraph (A)(ii), the Secretary 13
shall— 14
(i) establish or update the injury cri-15
teria, including the head, neck, chest, ab-16
domen, pelvis, and upper leg criteria, for 17
the testing devices described in subpara-18
graphs (A) and (B) of paragraph (1) based 19
on real world injuries and the greatest po-20
tential to increase safety; and 21
(ii) establish front seat crash-22
worthiness side impact tests with those 23
testing devices for adult female occupants 24
in all designated front seating positions 25
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tested, as of the date of enactment of this 1
Act, for adult male occupants. 2
(C) N
EW CAR ASSESSMENT PROGRAM UP -3
DATE.— 4
(i) I
N GENERAL.—The Secretary shall 5
promulgate a final decision notice to up-6
date the testing procedures used to test the 7
crashworthiness of passenger motor vehi-8
cles under the New Car Assessment Pro-9
gram of the National Highway Traffic 10
Safety Administration to require the use of 11
the testing devices described in subpara-12
graphs (A) and (B) of paragraph (1). 13
(ii) T
IMING.— 14
(I) I
N GENERAL.—The final deci-15
sion notice required under clause (i) 16
shall be promulgated concurrently 17
with the issuance of the final rule re-18
quired under subparagraph (A)(ii) if 19
the Secretary determines that promul-20
gating the final decision notice con-21
currently with the final rule required 22
under that subparagraph does not 23
delay issuance of that final rule. 24
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(II) DELAY.—If the Secretary 1
determines under subclause (I) that 2
promulgating the final decision notice 3
concurrently with the final rule re-4
quired under subparagraph (A)(ii) 5
would delay the issuance of that final 6
rule, the Secretary shall issue that 7
final rule before promulgating the 8
final decision notice required under 9
this subparagraph. 10
SEC. 4. TESTING DEVICES ROADMAP. 11
(a) I
NITIALREPORT.— 12
(1) I
N GENERAL.—Not later than 1 year after 13
the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary 14
shall submit to the Committee on Commerce, 15
Science, and Transportation of the Senate and the 16
Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House 17
of Representatives a report that— 18
(A) identifies timelines for the Secretary to 19
incorporate testing devices, other than the test-20
ing devices described in subparagraphs (A) and 21
(B) of section 3(a)(1) and subparagraphs (A) 22
and (B) of section 3(b)(1), that the Secretary 23
is researching, as of the date of enactment of 24
this Act, into the regulations contained in parts 25
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•S 161 IS
571 and 572 of title 49, Code of Federal Regu-1
lations (or successor regulations); 2
(B) identifies testing devices used for simi-3
lar crashworthiness standards in other countries 4
that are more advanced than the testing devices 5
required or being researched by the Secretary; 6
and 7
(C) subject to paragraph (2), describes a 8
process for the Secretary to update the testing 9
devices required in the United States under reg-10
ulations in effect on the date of enactment of 11
this Act, including whether the Secretary can 12
adopt more advanced testing devices already 13
used for compliance in other countries, such as 14
testing devices in use or being considered as 15
part of the European New Car Assessment Pro-16
gramme. 17
(2) N
O UPDATE NEEDED .—If the Secretary de-18
termines that testing devices used in the United 19
States as of the date of enactment of this Act do not 20
need to be updated, the Secretary shall include in 21
the report required under paragraph (1) a descrip-22
tion for why the Secretary believes those testing de-23
vices do not need to be updated, including by pro-24
viding a description for each testing device described 25
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in part 572 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations 1
(or successor regulations), that the Secretary deter-2
mines does not need to be updated. 3
(b) F
OLLOW-UPREPORT.—Not later than 5 years 4
after the date on which the Secretary submits the report 5
required under subsection (a), the Secretary shall submit 6
to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transpor-7
tation of the Senate and the Committee on Energy and 8
Commerce of the House of Representatives a report 9
that— 10
(1) describes whether the Secretary has met the 11
timelines described in subsection (a)(1)(A); and 12
(2) identifies any new testing devices used in 13
other countries that are more advanced than the 14
testing devices required or being research by the 15
Secretary as of the date of enactment of this Act. 16
Æ
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