When the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Standard 208 “Occupant Protection” was issued on July 2, 1969 the Safety Agency anticipated that the industry response would provide automatic frontal crash protection from air bags that deployed to protect all front seat occupants from injury in severe frontal crashes.  It was not until, September 23 1993, that NHTSA was able to publish a final rule that achieved that outcome.  The interim 24 years involved a series of stops and starts during which most of the original airbag suppliers lost interest and abandoned the airbag market.  The issues associated with airbags and their place in the Passive Restraint Standard 208 were directly influenced by interventions from the President, the Congress, the Supreme Court, Secretaries of Transportation, NHTSA Administrators, the Presidents of US Auto Companies and Senior Executives of Insurance Companies.