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As Auto Safety Agency Turns 40, Challenges Remain; Action Needed on Large, Unfinished Agenda

After 40 years of being caught in a tug of war between industry interests and carrying out its statutory mission, NHTSA still has much to do to protect the public.  Although some of the unmet needs identified below were addressed by the 2005 SAFETEA-LU Act, that law only sets deadlines for NHTSA to issue a standard; it does not mandate the quality of those standards.  Moreover, SAFETEA-LU is not the last word in vehicle safety — there are, in fact, many safety issues urgently in need of available remedies which NHTSA should also be addressing.  The following is only a partial, highlighted list of the many actions that NHTSA needs to take.

Addressing Safety Hazards with New Vehicle Standards

Dynamic Roof Crush Standard:   Although rollover crashes constitute only 3 percent of vehicle crashes, these crashes are responsible for one-third of all crash fatalities – over 10,000 deaths annually.   This high fatality rate is the result of weak vehicle roofs, which crush in with deadly force upon occupants’ head and spines when rollover crashes occur.  In response to SAFETEA-LU, NHTSA recently proposed a new roof crush standard; however, it is woefully inadequate and would require improvements in only 20 percent of new vehicles, as most vehicles now on the road would pass the agency’s proposed de minimus test.  Recent news reports indicate that auto industry lobbying of the agency may weaken the rule even further, gravely endangering motorists.

• In accordance with SAFETEA-LU, NHTSA must issue by July 1, 2008, a final roof crush rule that will effectively protect vehicle occupants on both the driver and passenger side in a rollover crash.The agency should require dynamic testing to get companies to produce realistic designs for safety.

Ejection Prevention: Light-truck and SUV occupants are 20 percent more likely than car occupants to be fully or partially ejected from the vehicle in a rollover crash.   Belts alone are not the answer even if they pretension in vehicle rollovers, which most do not.   Also needed are laminated side windows and improved structure and locks to prevent door opening.  According to 2002 government data, about 17 percent of belted occupants killed in rollovers were either totally or partially ejected from the vehicle.  The risk is even greater for SUV rollovers:  about 1 in 5 belted occupants killed in SUV rollover crashes were either partially or totally ejected.

• In accordance with SAFETEA-LU, NHTSA must issue a final rule for performance standards to reduce complete and partial ejections by October 1, 2009. 

Rollover Prevention:    Electronic Stability Control systems aid in vehicle handling and help vehicles maintain stability in situations when drivers may lose control of their vehicles – a benefit which studies have shown can decrease all crashes by as much as one-third.  This technology is especially important for SUVs, pickup trucks and 15-passenger vans, which are highly prone to rollover crashes. 

• NHTSA is required by SAFETEA-LU to issue, by October 1, 2009, a rollover prevention standard for all vehicles setting performance criteria consistent with the gains achievable by the use of electronic stability control.NHTSA is rumored to be readying a proposed rule for imminent publication.

15- Passenger Vans:    15- Passenger Vans are extremely dangerous vehicles with a high propensity to rollover, which increases dramatically when five or more people ride as occupants (in the van sold to carry 15!).   Additionally, these poorly designed vehicles have weak roofs that crush in during rollover crashes, often leading to occupant death or paraplegia.  Most disturbingly, these dangerous vehicles are often used to transport young people for daycare and sports teams and the elderly for churches and community groups.  NHTSA has acknowledged in warnings to users for years that these vehicles are deadly, but continues to sit on its hands regarding any meaningful new safety standards that would alleviate their risks.

•  SAFETEA-LU includes 15-passenger vans in the rulemaking obligations listed above, for roof crush, rollover prevention, and ejection prevention standards by covering vehicles up to 10,000 pounds. 

Side-impact protection: Side-impact protections such as air-bags and side structure could significantly reduce the risk of occupant death in crashes by an estimated 1,000 lives every year, yet side air bags are sold in only some vehicles. Since 2004, NHTSA has been sitting on a pending rulemaking to require side-impact protection.

• SAFETEA-LU demands an end to the delay, requiring NHTSA to produce a final rule by July 1, 2008.

Vehicle Compatibility:   The incompatibility between automobiles and much larger SUVs and pickup trucks can lead to devastating consequences when crashes occur.   NHTSA has done significant research but never issued even an advanced notice of rulemaking.  While the industry has scrambled to avert regulation in this area by supporting development of a voluntary industry program to improve compatibility, industry secrecy has greatly undermined the ability of the program to demonstrate benefits.  The single study on the program, published by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, does not permit outside researchers to validate its data because it failed to publish a list of which vehicles allegedly comply with the voluntary standard.

• NHTSA should issue a compatibility standard to ensure that vehicles are compatible in crashes in order to minimize crash related injuries and decrease crash fatalities. 

Improved Seat Structure: In crashes, vehicle seat structure can play a critical role in injury prevention.   Additionally, poorly designed seats can lead to debilitating injuries, such as when vehicle seat backs collapse in rear-impact crashes.   Further, safety belts can be installed on improved seats, making the belts fit better and improving occupancy protection.

• NHTSA should issue an improved seat structure rule, to ensure that all vehicle occupants are adequately protected. 

Conspicuity Standard:   Drivers must be able to fully view the environment in which they operate their vehicles.

• With the dramatic increase in light truck type vehicles, it is even more important for NHTSA to reissue the conspicuity standard that took ten years to develop and was inappropriately revoked in 1981.

Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems:   Under the 2000 TREAD Act NHTSA was required to issue a rule on Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS).   Improper tire inflation can lead to tire failure, severe crashes, and cost fuel economy.  A TPMS system would ensure that vehicle owners are aware when their tires are not properly inflated.  Unfortunately, NHTSA’s first attempt at a TPMS standard was so deeply flawed that a federal court threw it out; NHTSA’s follow-up was also unacceptably weak with the result that NHTSA has been taken back to court by the tire industry and public citizen.   In NHTSA’s second attempt, the TPMS rule does not apply to replacement tires and it sets the under-inflation baseline unrealistically low, thus failing to warn consumer when tires are “significantly under-inflated,” as the law requires. 

• NHTSA should stop playing deadly games on the TPMS issue and finally publish an acceptable rule that complies with the law. 

Tire Aging: New aftermarket tires might not be so new after all.   “New” tires might have been languishing in warehouses for years, degrading significantly in quality.  Because tire makers are allowed to stamp the manufacturing date on the tire in obscure code, purchasers of these “new” tires have no way to know if the tires are old and possibly degraded.  Under SAFETEA-LU, NHTSA is required to study the effects of tire aging but is not required to issue a consumer protection standard. 

• NHTSA should issue a rule to address the dangers posed to vehicle occupants by new tires that have been languishing unsold for years. 

Pretension Belt Standard: In rollover crashes, vehicle occupants are often not properly held in their seats by current seatbelts, a key reason for so many partial ejections.   NHTSA has been promising quietly to address safety belts and belt pretensioners, but has so far failed to act.

• Under the anti-ejection standard required by SAFETEA-LU, NHTSA must issue a stronger safety belt rule to ensure that vehicle occupants are properly protected by seatbelts, in particular by requiring rollover pretensioners and belt buckle locks designed to prevent inertial unlatching in rollover crashes. 

Rear Seatbelt Reminders: Roughly two-thirds of backseat passenger crash fatalities involve people who are not properly belted.   It is unclear why NHTSA has never required installation of reminder signals that detect and respond to unbelted passengers in the backseat, particularly in view of the large number of children who ride in the back seat. 

• NHTSA should issue a rear seat belt reminder rule, requiring automakers to include rear seat belt reminders in all new vehicles. 

Pedestrian Protection

European countries and Japan require vehicles to meet pedestrian standards that remove sharp edges from vehicle exteriors and that require exterior elements designed to prevent injury.  But NHTSA has never issued such a standard despite increasing pedestrian deaths, including an increase of 4 percent in 2005, resulting in 4,881 deaths. Honda has taken the lead on pedestrian safety in its designs, as did NHTSA in the 1970s design of its research safety vehicle. 

• NHTSA should evaluate pedestrian-friendly designs and issue minimum standards for child and adult protection.The agency has allocated $600 million over the next three years to help states develop pedestrian safety programs but has no vehicle or highway safety plan of action to reduce such deaths.

Motorcycle Safety

Motorcycle deaths are soaring as more people travel by motorcycle for economic reasons.   In 2005 they increased a whopping 13 percent, killing 4,553 people.   Helmet use is a primary remedy but many states have revoked their use laws, leaving only 20 states with such laws.  Big states such as Pennsylvania, Texas and Florida, revoked them in recent years, and Congress has prohibited NHTSA from pressing states to enact or retain them. 

• NHTSA must ask Congress for help in addressing this issue, releasing it from these strictures. It should also prepare detailed reports for each state without such laws on the costs to the state for medical care, unemployment, and welfare and also costs for insurance and drivers of other vehicles, so that governors and mayors know how the absence of helmet use laws is affecting their governments and their residents.

Protecting Children

Built-in Child Restraints and Booster Seats:    The unfortunate evidence is in. The complexity of child restraint systems is conquering many parents, and the result is that many parents do not properly install them despite recent efforts to standardize the installation mechanism.  Child restraint systems are frequently recalled, but those recalls are often ineffective because of a lack of records of the purchasers.  These systems are not tested for compliance with the vehicle in which they are ultimately used.  Moreover, they are currently expensive items that are sold separately from the vehicle.

• NHTSA could improve child safety immeasurably by requiring built-in child restraint and booster seat systems.Building them into the vehicle makes it possible to conduct effective recalls with records that follow the vehicle.They could be subject to performance standards designed to ensure their effectiveness in the vehicle and their price would fall when included as a standard feature of the vehicle.

Backover visibility:   Over 200 children are killed every year when vehicles back over them.   The problem is especially acute with larger vehicles such as SUVs and pickups.

• NHTSA is required by SAFETEA-LU to study backover avoidance technology that could reduce these unnecessary fatalities.Although technology to meet this need is currently expensive, manufacturers would have an incentive to innovate and drive down that cost if NHTSA mandated backover avoidance standards.

Power window switches:   Power windows unnecessarily kill infants and children every year, when the children manage to clamber onto the power window switch while they are looking out the window or playing in the vehicle.   All foreign manufacturers use lift-up switches which prevent inadvertent actuation, and some install object-sensitive windows that stop much like elevator doors.  U.S. manufacturers have refused for decades to address this problem.

• NHTSA should finally close this gap and protect America’s children by requiring lift-up switches for power windows.

Closing Data Gaps and Serving the Public’s Right to Know

Event Data Recorders: Event Data Recorders (EDRs) record information about vehicle performance in the last few seconds before a crash occurs.   This information is invaluable for improving vehicle safety and documenting vehicle performance in a crash.   Privacy concerns must also be addressed with clear agency and private use protocols.

• NHTSA should require EDRs in all new vehicles, which should gather more data points than those that were standardized in the recently-issued voluntary rule. It should also develop a robust EDR data collection program for NHTSA research and equip and train field investigators and state officials to collect these data.

Early Warning: Under the Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation Act (TREAD), NHTSA is required to compile a public database with early warning information supplied by manufacturers on potential vehicle safety defects when a death or injury occurs.   To date, however, NHTSA has kept this data secret from the public. 

• Public Citizen challenged NHTSA’s approach in federal court and won.NHTSA’s secrecy must end, and the early warning database should be made available to consumers as well as the agency.Also manufacturers should be required to disclose lawsuits filed concerning makes and models listed in their reports to NHTSA.

NHTSA is Grossly Under Funded

NHTSA is Grossly Under funded:    To carry out its huge mission the agency needs triple the $227 million currently allocated for operations and research, including merely $25 million for vehicle safety.   It is really starving for funds particularly for its Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), National Accident Sampling System (NASS) and other research.   NHTSA collects information of vehicle-related crashes, injuries, and fatalities.  This information is essential for the agency to understand vehicle and highway safety and areas where remedial actions are necessary.  NHTSA’s important research for collection of this data has been severely under funded for 30 years.

• NHTSA must request increased funding for its lifesaving work.

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