Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 401 (FMVSS 401) is an American standard that establishes the requirement for providing a trunk release mechanism which allows a person trapped inside the trunk compartment of a passenger car to escape. This standard does not apply to vehicles with a hinged back door found on

hatchback A hatchback is a car body style, car body configuration with a rear door that swings upward to provide access to the main interior of the car as a cargo area rather than just to a separated trunk. Hatchbacks may feature fold-down second-row sea ...

s and

station wagon A station wagon (American English, US, also wagon) or estate car (British English, UK, also estate) is an automotive Car body style, body-style variant of a Sedan (automobile), sedan with its roof extended rearward over a shared passenger/cargo ...

s. Like all other

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) are U.S. federal vehicle regulations specifying design, construction, performance, and durability requirements for motor vehicles and regulated automobile safety-related components, systems, and ...

, FMVSS 401 is administered by the

United States Department of Transportation The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT or DOT) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is headed by the secretary of transportation, who reports directly to the president of the United States a ...

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA ) is an agency of the U.S. federal government, part of the Department of Transportation, focused on automobile safety regulations. NHTSA is charged with writing and enforcing Feder ...

. This standard specifies requirements for passenger cars that have trunk compartments be equipped with an interior trunk release making it possible for a trapped person to escape from the compartment. The release can be either manual or automatic. If manual, it must be visible from inside the closed trunk and if automatic it must unlatch within five minutes of trunk closure.

References

Automotive safety Automotive standards Standards of the United States {{standard-stub

See also

References