Cite as: 529 U. S. 861 (2000)
Stevens, J., dissenting
passive restraint in a certain model of car because of other design features particular to that car . . . would not necessarily frustrate Standard 208's purposes." Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 26, n. 23.21 Petitioners' claims here are quite similar to the claim described by the Government: their complaint discusses other design features particular to the 1987 Accord (such as the driver's seat) that allegedly rendered it unreasonably dangerous to operate without an airbag. App. 4-5. The only distinction is that in this case, the particular 1987 Accord driven by Ms. Geier included no passive restraint of any kind because Honda chose to comply with Standard 208's 10% minimum requirement by installing passive restraints in other 1987 models. I fail to see how this distinction makes a difference to the purposes of Standard 208, however. If anything, the type of claim favored by the Government—e. g., that a particular model of car should have contained an airbag instead of an automatic seatbelt—would seem to trench even more severely upon the purposes that the Government and Honda contend were behind the promulgation of Standard 208: that having a variety of passive restraints, rather than only airbags, was necessary to promote safety. Thus, I conclude that the Government, on the Secretary's behalf, has failed to articulate a coherent view of the policies behind Standard 208 that would be frustrated by petitioners' claims.
V
For these reasons, it is evident that Honda has not crossed the high threshold established by our decisions regarding
21 Compare ante, at 881 (disagreeing with Government's view by concluding that tort-law duty "requir[ing] manufacturers of all similar cars to install airbags rather than other passive restraint systems . . . would [pre-sent] an obstacle to the variety and mix of devices that the federal regulation sought"), with ante, at 883, 885 (noting that "the agency's own views should make a difference," but contending that the above-quoted Government view is "not at issue here").
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