The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection recently held a hearing titled, “National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Oversight: The Road Ahead.” Members of the committee questioned David L. Strickland, NHTSA administrator, on NHTSA’s functionality and effectiveness.
Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., chairman of the subcommittee, said the purpose of the hearing was to “examine NHTSA’s configuration, its organization, and its performance in the areas of defects investigation, safety standards and enforcement.”
Recently, the Automotive Service Association (ASA) wrote a letter to Strickland requesting that NHTSA use its authority to regulate aftermarket crash parts. In light of the hearing, ASA also sent the letter to members of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
The letter outlined concerns with NHTSA’s inaction, stating: “The lack of federal regulation of the aftermarket crash parts industry opens the vehicle owner to a host of quality and safety concerns. How can NHTSA’s mission statement, ‘Save lives, prevent injuries and reduce economic costs due to road traffic crashes, through education, research, safety standards and enforcement activity,’ ignore the types of parts used to repair a vehicle after a collision?”
In the hearing, Strickland expressed a desire to improve NHTSA’s effectiveness and increase legislative authority. He said, “One of the first questions I asked when I became the administrator of NHTSA is whether our current statutory authority – drafted largely in the 1960s and 1970s – is sufficient to address the modern automobile and the global automotive marketplace. I have asked our legal and program staffs to take a very close look at the scope and effectiveness of those authorities and make recommendations about how they may be improved. I look forward to working with this committee on how NHTSA’s ability to perform its mission might be strengthened through legislation.”
Strickland discussed at length, in his testimony, the function of the Office of Defects Investigation.
Joan Claybrook, former NHTSA administrator and president of Public Citizen, highlighted seven remedies for the agency to be more effective:
• Low Priority for Enforcement.
• Agency Secrecy Makes Public Oversight Difficult.
• Penalties Are Insufficient to Deter Violations.
• Agency Resources Need to be Drastically Increased.
• Information Gathering and Data Systems Are Insufficient.
• New Safety Standards Should Result from Investigations and Testing.
• Conflict of Interest Rules Need to be Strengthened.
