The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will require new vehicles to sound a warning if back-seat passengers don’t use their seatbelts — a rule that will take effect in September 2027, the agency said this week.
That means more of the noisy, persistent ding familiar to drivers who start the ignition before clicking their seatbelt, and to front-seat passengers who forget to buckle up.
This new requirement, announced on Monday, is part of an update to the existing rule for seatbelt-reminder systems. Vehicles will also be required to have enhanced warnings for driver and front passenger seats, starting on Sep. 1, 2026.
Seatbelt use in back seats has consistently been lower than that in front seats, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In 2022, front seatbelt use was about 91.6 percent, while rear seatbelt use was about 81.7 percent, the agency said.
A rear-seatbelt warning is already a familiar feature to many drivers. About 47 percent of vehicles with a model year of 2022 have voluntarily provided a rear-seatbelt warning system, according to the agency.
Under the updated rule, vehicles will need to provide a visual alert when they start if a rear seat is occupied and its seatbelt is not in use. An audio and visual alert will also be required if a seatbelt is unbuckled while the vehicle is moving.
Most vehicles already sound a warning if the front passenger seat is occupied and a seatbelt is not used, but the rule change will make that alert a requirement. It will also extend the duration of audio and visual seatbelt warnings for the driver’s seat.
The seatbelt-reminder noise for drivers was first required in the United States in 1972, when car safety features, such as airbags, were the subject of heated debate. At the time, auto industry leaders said that regulators were moving too fast. Much of the public was also resistant to those changes, with only an estimated 20 percent of drivers using seatbelts, according to the Department of Transportation.
Concerns about the “policing” of auto design were elevated further when regulators required an ignition lock that would prevent cars released in 1974 from starting if the driver was not wearing a seatbelt. This requirement was unpopular — particularly among middle-aged men, car dealers told The New York Times — and was repealed by Gerald Ford in October 1974.
The changes announced on Monday could prevent more than 500 injuries and 50 deaths each year, once fully implemented, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a news release.
About 50 percent of the 25,420 passenger vehicle occupants who died in car crashes in 2022 were not wearing seatbelts, according to the agency.
The rule applies to passenger cars, trucks and buses, but not school buses and multipurpose passenger vehicles that can safely carry up to 10,000 pounds.
Adam Raviv, the chief counsel of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said in a statement: “While seatbelt use has improved for decades, there’s still more we can do to make sure everyone buckles up.”
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