US officials will appeal seat-belt, air-bag ruling

The Justice Department will appeal to the Supreme Court to overrule a lower court's decision requiring that all cars feature automatic seat belts or air bags by the time the 1984 models come out.

The department argued that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is authorized to kill the project to save $1 billion in costs. The traffic agency has also questioned the safety benefits of the safety devices, which were reinstated by a federal appeals court that judged they had been rescinded without proper justification.