FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards)

What It Means

The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) are codified at 49 CFR Part 571 and represent the core body of binding U.S. vehicle safety regulation. There are currently about 75 active FMVSS standards, numbered in three series: the 100-series covers crash avoidance (braking, lighting, tires, controls, and telltales); the 200-series covers crashworthiness (occupant protection, seat belts, airbags, child restraint anchorages, window glazing, door locks, head restraints); and the 300-series covers post-crash survivability (fuel system integrity, flammability of interior materials, compressed natural gas containers). Representative examples include FMVSS 108 (lamps and reflective devices), FMVSS 126 (electronic stability control, mandatory on all passenger vehicles since model year 2012), FMVSS 138 (tire pressure monitoring systems, mandatory since 2008), FMVSS 208 (frontal occupant crash protection, the standard governing airbags and seat belts), FMVSS 213 (child restraint systems), FMVSS 301 (fuel system integrity), and FMVSS 305 (electric-powered vehicles, covering EV battery safety after crashes). Every vehicle sold in the U.S. must be certified by the manufacturer as compliant with all applicable FMVSS; certification is typically indicated on the Monroney label and the federal certification placard on the driver-side door jamb. Failure to meet an FMVSS is a "noncompliance" under the statute, which triggers the same recall obligations as a "defect", both appear as Part 573 reports and feed into RecallCheck. NHTSA updates and adds FMVSS through formal rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act; recent additions include FMVSS 150 (V2V communications, proposed but not yet finalized) and updated automatic emergency braking requirements that will become mandatory on light vehicles in phased compliance by September 2029.

FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards) is one of the NHTSA or vehicle-safety concepts that recurs across RecallIndex. The definition above is the technical answer; below is how the concept connects to the NHTSA data that drives every vehicle page on the site.

In the RecallIndex Safety Score, this concept feeds one of the four factor weights — recall severity (40 percent), complaint frequency (30 percent), crash and fire reports (20 percent), or trend direction (10 percent). The methodology page on the site walks through every input in detail.

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