SUV Exempted Over Air Bags

[Klaus]

SUV Exempted Over Air Bags

ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 5, 2006; Page D6

Regulators gave Cross Lander USA Inc. the go-ahead to sell a bare-bones Romanian off-road vehicle in the U.S. without air bags until May 2008.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration allowed the exemption for Cross Lander after finding the company could go out of business without it. U.S. safety rules require air bags for the driver and front passenger in vehicles that weigh less than 5,500 pounds, unless a company can prove it faces "substantial economic hardship" and tried to meet the safety standards.

The Cross Lander 244X is made by Romanian auto maker Aro SA, which has struggled financially over the past decade. Cross Lander USA said it lost more than $5 million in 2004.

The company will be required to put a warning sticker in the vehicle alerting buyers that there are no air bags.

Watchdog group Public Citizen had campaigned against the waiver because it argued the vehicles would be dangerous without air bags.

The "decision is a serious detriment to the agency's obligation to maintain safety standards," said Laura MacCleery, Public Citizen's counsel for auto safety. "A warning label does not take the place of an air bag."

The traffic safety administration estimated that a maximum of 9,000 vehicles would be sold during the exemption. Those sales would generate enough money to allow the company to equip vehicles with air bags when the exemption expires, the agency said.

The boxy vehicles resemble a 1980s-era Land Rover and the company has said it planned to sell them for about $20,000, about a sixth of the cost of General Motors Corp.'s Hummer H1.


The 244X SUV from Cross Lander