National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
The
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (
NHTSA, often pronounced "nit-suh") is an agency of the Executive Branch of the
U.S. Government, part of the
Department of Transportation. It describes its mission as "Save lives, prevent injuries, reduce vehicle-related crashes."[
1].
One of NHTSA's major achievements in pursuit of this mission is the data files maintained by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis. In particular, the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, or FARS, has become a resource for
traffic safety research not only in the US, but throughout the world. Research contributions using FARS by researchers from many countries appear in many non-US technical publications, and provide the most solid knowledge on the subject.
In the mid 1960s, when what is now NHTSA came in being, the USA had safer traffic than any country in the world, whether measured by the number of traffic deaths per thousand vehicles, or the number of traffic deaths per 100 million miles.
In 2002, the US had sunk to 16th place (behind Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Iceland, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland) in terms of deaths per thousand vehicles. In terms of deaths per 100 million miles, the USA had dropped from first place to tenth place.
Simple raw numbers of annual traffic deaths, all from readily available government data (FARS for US), show the pattern clearly using three comparison countries that are otherwise similar to the US.
| 1979 Fatalities | 2002 Fatalities | Percent Change |
| United States | 51,093 | 42,815 | -16.2% |
| Great Britain | 6,352 | 3,431 | -46.0% |
| Canada | 5,863 | 2,936 | -49.9% |
| Australia | 3,508 | 1,715 | -51.1% |
If US fatalities had dropped by the same close to 50% amount experienced in the other countries, the US would now be suffering about 27,000 annual traffic deaths, instead of the actual 42,000. By not decreasing as has occurred in other countries, about 15,000 additional Americans are being killed on our roads annually [2].
While data leave no doubt of the enormity of the failure, the extent of NHTSA's responsibility cannot be so easily determined. However, what is clear from decades of scientific research is that behavioral factors are vastly more important than vehicle factors. Even NHTSA's own research established this in a classic large scale study performed in Indiana University in the mid 1970s. Based on multi-disciplinary examinations, the vehicle was identified as the primary factor in only 2% of 5,000 crashes investigated. Even for these, the vehicle factor was mainly related to poor maintenance of brakes and tires. (Detailed reports summarized in Treat JR. A study of precrash factors involved in traffic accidents. The HSRI Research Review. Ann Arbor, MI; May-August 1980.)
As much of the rest of this article so clearly attests, NHTSA's efforts have focused largely on those vehicle factors which research shows to be of microscopic relevance. The vehicle mix, and vehicle regulations in Canada are not all that different from those in the US, yet Canada cut its traffic deaths in half while those in the US declined by only 16%. An immediate illustration of how much more important are the factors that Canada (etc.) emphasized.
Any discussion of the effect NHTSA has had on US safety must start with broad results derived from data that are not in dispute â€" are not controversial.
In 1940, the United States implemented automobile design
legislation, concerning
sealed beam headlamps, which had recently been invented and were an important safety advance at that time. This regulation, virtually unchanged for the next 40 years, set a pattern of using auto safety design legislation to freeze innnovation at a point in time.
In 1958, the UN established the
World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations. The United States at the time, but vehicles meeting these established safety standards were legal to import into the United States.
In 1965 and 1966, public pressure grew in the US to increase
the safety of cars, culminating with the publishing of
Ralph Nader's book
Unsafe at Any Speed, and the
National Academy of Sciences' "Accidental Death and Disability - The Neglected Disease of Modern Society".
In 1966, Congress held a series of highly publicized hearings regarding highway safety, and passed legislation to make installation of
seat belts mandatory, and created several predacessor agencies which would eventually become the NHTSA, including the National Traffic Safety Agency, the National Highway Safety Agency, and the National Highway Safety Bureau.
The NHTSA was officially established in 1970 by the Highway Safety Act of 1970. In 1972, the Motor Vehicle Information and Cost Savings Act expanded NHTSA's scope to include consumer information programs.
Since this era, automobiles have become far better in protecting their occupants in vehicle impacts. The number of deaths on American highways hover around 40,000 annually, a lower death rate per mile travelled than in the 1960's.
NHTSA has conducted numerous high-profile investigations of
automotive safety issues, including the
Audi 5000/60 Minutes affair and the
Ford Explorer rollover problem.
In the US, NHTSA is currently evaluating whether
Electronic Stability Control should be mandatory on all passenger vehicles. This is remarkably fast for a technology first brought to public attention in 1997, with the Swedish
moose test.
Consumers today have a far greater amount of auto safety information available, due to the efforts of NHTSA and the
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
In the era when NHTSA began, a commonly repeated saying in the US auto industry was "safety does not sell." From a modern perspective, this seems unusual, since auto manufacturers now prominently feature safety features and positive safety ratings in their
advertising, but the automobile market in the US at this time in history had some unusual characteristics.
At the time NHTSA was established, the US auto market was an
oligopoly, with just three companies controlling 85% of the market. In
economics,
oligopoly is a type of
market failure. US manufacturers (which had innovated the
automatic transmission,
air conditioning, and
power steering in the
post-War years) suddenly realized that any innovation in
safety would be
unprofitable.
Some of the major
car safety innovations of the 20th century, like
roll cage construction,
seat belts and
traction control, were therefore developed abroad in response to
competitive market forces in those territories.
Government agencies have only a modest record of success in the area of
innovation and breakthrough design, but they are widely perceived as good at establishing minimum acceptable standards.
Faced with this situation, the normally
free market capitalist Americans sought government help. Car manufacturers appeared to be dragging their feet on improving vehicle safety in the American market. Some saw parallels to the 1906 case of
Upton Sinclair and
meatpacking.
Command and control legislation appeared to many to be a wise course of action at the time.
This move was
controversial, with other Americans feeling that if a certain passenger vehicle is not safe, the consumer is perfectly free not to purchase it. They would point to
Volvo, which equipped its cars with
seat belts beginning in 1959, and was available to Americans. The real
market failure in this view was the lack of safety information. Other than providing this information, the government has no role.
The
command and control group won this argument and NHTSA reflects this view. Cars that fall outside of NHTSA regulations are actually
illegal for Americans to possess.
Today the US auto market has fragmented and is far more
competitive, leading to advances in
car safety, technological
innovation, and
price competition.
Design legislation led to many unintended consequences, especially in the early days of NTHSA.
Many of these spring from the fact that Americans in the 1960's, 1970's, and early 1980's often preferred not to wear
seat belts - yet these are one of the single most important safety devices ever created. NHTSA struggled with this fact and came up with the seatbelt interlock in 1974, that prevented the car from starting unless the occupants were belted. The interlock provoked such an uproar that it was quickly pulled from the market.
Also in 1974, NHTSA banned the
Citroen SM automobile, which contemporary
journalists noted was one of the safest vehicles available at the time, due to a non-safety related design issue. The law under which the SM was banned was repealed in 1981. Ford reintroduced a similar powered suspension system to the US market in 1988 in one of its
Lincoln models.
NHTSA also administers the controversial
Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program. The
Wall Street Journal and others have argued that this program distorts market
incentives, forcing people to buy smaller, less safe vehicles. CAFE may indeed be a driving factor behind the explosion in demand for
SUVs, which are considered "light trucks" for CAFE purposes and therefore do not have to meet the stricter standards for vehicles classified as "cars." The counter argument is that politically reflecting the actual cost of
oil and its
externalities to the US
consumer is not politically feasible.
In the 1980's, NHTSA suddenly faced a conflict between its mission to enforce the laws
Congress had mandated on automobiles and its objective to increase vehicle
fuel economy.
Ford, a major
U.S. car company, wished to introduce the first
aerodynamically designed American family sedan as a 1986 model - the
Ford Taurus. The design of this vehicle would not achieve decent
aerodynamic performance if forced to comply with the 1940 regulation on automobile
headlights then in force and administered by NHTSA.
With the lobbying muscle of
Ford, a change in the
headlight law was finally enacted. Ford used headlamps bulbs that have same transverse-mounted filament design as in the sealed beam headlamps in use at the time.
The United States has chosen to make is
automobile design regulations incompatible with those of other industrialised nations, such as the
European Union and
Japan.
Since NHTSA regulations have no provision for equivalency, and full NHTSA type approval costs approximately USD $2 million, the availability of some cars to American consumers is restricted. This particularly impacts low volume manufacturers.
Because of the unavailability of certain cars, a
grey market for vehicles naturally arose in the late 1970's. This provided an alternate method to acquire desirable vehicles only sold overseas, and still obtain NHTSA certification.
The success of the grey market, however, ate into the business of
Mercedes-Benz of North America Inc, which launched a successful
congressional lobbying effort to eliminate this alternative for consumers in 1988.
It is no longer possible to import a non-US vehicle into the United States as a personal import, with one exception. In 1998, NHTSA granted vehicles over 25 years of age
dispensation from the rules it administers, since these are presumed to be
collector vehicles.
*
DWI Courts*
Not Invented Here syndrome
*
World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations*
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108*
headlights*
automotive lighting*
Ford Taurus*
Mercedes-Benz W126*
Grey import vehicles*
Motorcycle safety*
National Archives entry*
Washington Post article*
DOT's list of operating administrators of the NHTSA*
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Home*
NHTSA "safer cars" site*
NHTSA vehicle importation regulations*
NHTSA's Search Manufacturer's Databases
