The NHTSA is the federal agency charged with regulating safety standards in the auto industry and transportation. To achieve its stated mission of reducing fatalities, injuries and costs associated with auto accidents, the NHTSA acts through research, public education and consumer protection initiatives; investigates defects and enforces manufacturer compliance with safety standards; and helps regulate other standards such as fuel economy. It deals with topics from safety defects, crash testing and accident statistics to child seats, teen driving and pedestrians.
The agency was founded as the result of intense public-interest advocacy, with the explicit purpose of protecting consumers through regulation of the auto industry and federal safety standards. However, over the years, and as a result of devolution, budget-slashing and a progressive leaning to industry interests, it is now accused of representing the industries it was intended to regulate.
The history of auto safety in the U.S. is a disturbing story that often has pitted consumers against manufacturers, particularly since Ralph Nader brought debate about the safety and auto industry regulation into the public sphere in the mid-1960s.
As late as the 1940s, auto industry regulation was limited to vehicle design legislation, with little movement toward the more comprehensive regulatory system that exists today. In the late 1950s, the US refused to join or adopt measures from a growing international movement toward safety regulation beginning with the United Nations Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulation (1958), which gave way to the U.N.’s Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) on vehicle design, construction, safety and performance.
But by the mid-1960s, public pressure to increase vehicle safety made the issue difficult to ignore, and influential publications, including Ralph Nader’s book Unsafe at Any Speed, brought it to national attention . In 1965, Congress began holding high-profile hearings on auto safety, and in 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed two bills that mandated certain safety features on all U.S. cars: the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act and the. The same year, the first Administrator was appointed to run two corresponding agencies—the National Traffic Safety Agency and the National Highway Safety Agency. Originally located in the Department of Commerce, the agencies were transferred to the Department of Transportation when it was established as a cabinet-level agency in 1969, and merged to create the NHTSA in 1970, with the new Administrator reporting directly to the Secretary of Transportation.
In 1972, the Motor Vehicle Information and Cost Savings Act expanded the agency’s scope to include consumer/public information programs.
Over the next several years, the NHTSA began to work on regulations to reduce rollovers (cited in 1970 as responsible for 10,000 deaths per year) and in 1977 issued a passive restraint requirement on all vehicles: meaning automatic seatbelts or airbags were required by the 1984 model year.
But the 1970s also saw the auto industry take a more proactive role in trying to shape and escape requirements for Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). Manufacturers convinced lawmakers to exempt light trucks (and later, minivans and SUVs) from safety requirements because they couldn’t be classified as “cars.” Critics claim this move, aided by powerful and pervasive advertising campaigns that aimed to convince the American public that light trucks were the future, offering all the benefits of passenger cars but with added space, cost thousands of entirely preventable injuries and deaths.
In 1981, the incoming Reagan Administration dramatically cut the agency’s budget. Under a new pro-deregulation Administrator, NHTSA began attempts to rollback passive restraint requirements, but was ruled against in a Supreme Court decision of 1983.
By the early 1980s, courts were finding numerous cases of manufacturers lying under oath about safety defects. According to consumer advocates, the industry was also withholding critical date from the government, using a deceptive cost/benefit analysis to sway decision-makers from spending on safety standards.
In 1987, NHTSA began the New Car Assessment Program, based on 35-mph crash tests, and began issuing crashworthiness ratings for new models.
By the 1990s, more advancements in safety regulation, such as the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, which mandated in part that safety standards for cars be applied to trucks and SUVs, were tempered by the dominance of business over consumer protection. (For example: In 1994, after the government declared millions of GM pickup trucks manufactured between 1973 and 1987 to be defective, the manufacturer was offered a settlement in which it would spend $51 million on driver safety programs, but in which owners received no compensation or repairs).
Established by the Highway Safety Act in 1970, NHTSA is the federal agency responsible for regulating traffic and vehicle safety. Its mission to “save lives, prevent injuries and reduce economic costs” related to road traffic accidents is approached through a three-fold strategy of public education and funding, research and safety standards, and investigations/enforcement.
NHTSA conducts independent crash testing of many new vehicles, including front, side, and rollover tests on trucks and SUVs, rating them according to a five-star system. Because the agency buys cars off the lot to ensure objective conditions, they can’t afford to test all vehicles, but choose representative ones.
Each year NHSTA collects accident statistics and issues an exhaustive report of factors like speeding, alcohol-related accidents, injuries and fatalities, as well as funding internal studies on new safety technologies, seat belts, teen driving, child seats, etc. NHTSA also commissions studies from other bodies and makes grants for research conducted at state and city levels, and for academic and non-academic research programs.
NHTSA’s Office of Defects receives consumer complaints and conducts defect investigations into possible cases of safety defect. The agency administers safety recalls and oversees the adequacy of manufacturers’ recall campaigns.
See “Controversy” Section for more reading on major defect and recall controversies, including Firestone/Ford and recent GM recalls.
Some notable studies:
Vehicle Safety
The National Vehicle Safety Program (NVS) conducts “research, development, testing, crash investigation, and data collection and analysis activities… [and] provides the scientific strength needed to support the Agency's motor vehicle and traffic safety goals.”
NCSA’s Analysis & Statistics program is created and presented based on the data collected through the division’s Crash Research programs and projects. These projects include national and State Data Program projects which focus on state-level data collection, as well as information sharing and efficiency between states and the federal government.
Since 2005, NCSA has published the following evaluations:
NCSA Regulatory Evaluation
NCSA has evaluated its major programs since NHSTA’s founding in 1970. The evaluation of the effectiveness of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) began in 1975. According to the agency, most of NHTSA's crashworthiness and several crash avoidance standards have been evaluated at least once since 1975, as have a number of consumer-oriented regulations, such as bumpers, theft protection, fuel economy and the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), as well as some technologies that were not mandatory under Federal regulations, such as antilock brake systems.
Budget
Most of the Agency’s budget is spent on “driver safety,” with a small fraction allocated to “vehicle safety” and “environmental” programs like CAFE.
Grants
Raising the Roof…Strength Standards
Although less than 5% of crashes involve vehicles rolling over, rollovers account for 25% of fatalities. The current standard, which has been in place since 1971, requires a roof to withstand 1.5 times the weight of the vehicle without collapsing more than five inches of the roof. The NHTSA has proposed raising the standard to 2.5 times the weight, but Ralph Nader and others have suggested that the limit should be raised to 4 times the weight.
Gag Rule
In a story that would be comical but for its worrisome implications, New York Times reporter Christopher Jenson stumbled onto a gag rule at the NHTSA. Jenson broke the story when he called the agency to enquire about a technical safety issue with an expert in the field, and was informed by agency officials that he couldn’t use any information from the exchange or quote (attribute) it to the source. NHTSA Administrator Nicole Nason had barred her entire staff—even the communications office—from answering reporters’ questions (officials even refused to answer Jenson’s penetrating probe, “What is the name of NHTSA’s Administrator?”). The result was that some of the world’s top auto safety experts were not allowed to share what could be crucial information with the public. Reporters who had questions about data, facts, policies, were given the option of obtaining “background information” from agency employees or with speaking on the record to an agency official, a politically appointed official like Nason, instead of an expert on the topic they were collecting information about.
The policy runs contrary to a history of openness and availability, in which agency experts have always freely spoken to reporters as field experts.
Firestone and Ford Tire Controversy
Following a series of complaints of failure both in the U.S. and abroad, in May 2000 NHTSA began a defect investigation into 47 million ATX, ATX II, and Wilderness AT tires manufactured by Bridgestone/Firestone Company (BF). The agency also issued an inquiry to Ford and BF regarding the high incident of tire failure on Ford Explorers. Data obtained by Ford revealed an unusually high failure rate for the BF-manufactured 15-inch ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT tires. These models had been experiencing tread separation, especially at high speeds and in warm climates. Many of the tires in question were made at the Decatur, Illinois, plant. The failure caused many of the vehicles to roll over, resulting in serious injury and fatalities. According to the NHTSA, nearly 200 complaints were ultimately filed in regard to the tires. In a Consumer Affairs article dated December 7, 2000, the agency put “official deaths” from Firestone AT, ATX and Wilderness tires at 148. In September 2000 testimony before Congress, former NHTSA head and Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook put the death toll at “at least” 88 and 250 injured, “most of them in Ford Explorers.”
Exacerbating the lethal combination of BF tires and Ford Explorers, a topic of intense debate, with both manufacturers blaming the other for the defect, was the fact that Ford required a low tire inflation to counter rollover risks associated with the Explorer, which led to an increased incidence of tread separation.
In August of the same year, BF announced a voluntary recall of the models under investigation, which they estimated numbered about 14.4 million (total produced), 6.5 million of which would still be in use at the time of the recall.
Congressional investigators later found evidence that BF knew their tires had serious defects in 1996, when 8 of 18 tires pulled from production lines failed in high-speed tests (7 of which were made at the Decatur, IL plant). The Congressional inquiry led to the Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act of November 2000. TREAD sought to tighten regulatory and safety mechanisms, allowing for stronger penalties, longer recall periods, more authority for regulators and enforcement, and increased funding for investigations. NHTSA was also directed to upgrade tire safety standards and improve labeling information. Warning systems for low-tire pressure, a culprit in the failures, also became mandatory.
GM Recall Controversies
Among the many defect controversies scarring GMC’s history was that of the manufacturer’s major full-size truck line in the early 1990s. The design defect was an unprotected gas tank placed outside the vehicle frame that, when struck in a side-impact crash, was prone to explosion. In 1994 then-Secretary of Transportation Federico Pena headed an investigation into the gas-tank safety defect that was causing fire-related deaths and found at least 150 fire-related deaths. The investigation also found that GM had known about the defect since the early 1970s and had failed to correct it or warn the public. GM settled for $51 million (to be spent on public safety programs, but not compensation for victims/consumers). However, GM was also hit with class-actions suits in nearly every state, which were consolidated into one of the largest automotive class action settlements in history (multi-district litigation affecting 49 states. Texas, home to more than one million of the vehicles in question, had a separate class action.
It can be argued that, through new technological challenges, changing demographic conditions and policy storms, the agency has managed to exert a tremendous influence on auto safety, contributing to a significant decline in accident rates, improved safety regulations, and increased information for consumers. Accident, fatality and injury rates are all far below those current at the time of the agency’s founding.
On the other hand, Ralph Nader, who was extremely influential in catalyzing federal regulation of the auto industry and safety standards in the 1960s, has likened the agency to nothing more than a “consulting agency to Detroit,” and pronounces regulation officially dead: “From being a national safety watchdog, garnering front page news coverage, NHTSA became an expendable agency, headed by political hacks or cowed directors.” Most standards, he notes, were issued under Presidents Johnson and Carter, and in the time since, through Republican deregulation or Clinton-era passivity, the agency has lapsed into a “comatose” state:
“During this period of near inaction, millions of vehicles were not recalled for known defects. NHTSA preferred ‘voluntary compliance,’ another phrase for ‘leave it up to the auto companies.’ Practical innovations by creative auto suppliers were left on the shelves, snubbed by Detroit. Members of the expert teams at NHTSA started to leave the agency, including its excellent fuel efficiency group of engineers and scientists and its talented chief scientist, Dr. Carl Clark - an air bag pioneer.” (Nader 2006)
Black Boxes/Event Data Recorders
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Founded: 1970
Annual Budget: $851 million
Employees:
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National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
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Kelly, David
Acting Administrator
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David Kelly took over as Acting Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration after the August 29, 2008, resignation of administrator Nicole Nason. President Bush officially nominated Kelly to be NHTSA administrator on September 2, 2008. Kelly was a member of the staff of the National Safety Council from 1996 to 2003 and was program manager and Director of the Council’s Air Bag and Seat Belt Safety Campaign. He also held leadership positions with Mothers Against Drunk Diving. Kelly held the position of deputy assistant secretary for government affairs at the U.S. Department of Transportation, prior to his appointment as acting administrator, was the chief of staff at NHTSA, managing the agency’s daily operations.
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