NHTSA has 125 engineers working on auto safety. Only five are electrical engineers, and one other – one -- is a software engineer.
A House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection tomorrow will hold a hearing called, “NHTSA Oversight: The Road Ahead,” to examine the effectiveness of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in protecting you and your loved ones.
At stake, are how your tax dollars are spent, what they are spent on, and ultimately whether our safety agency is doing its job, as specified by the laws your representatives wrote.
This has the potential become an ugly, politically charged session, as Republicans try to defend their non-regulatory record, while the Democrats try to defend their special interest funding in its DOT budget. (It appears to independent me, though, that there is more than enough blame that can be spread on both sides of the aisle. And for some more background and disclosure, see Eisenstein’s and Zino’s editorial on the problems at NHTSA – Click Here. )
If you look beyond the posturing of incumbent politicians running for re-election at a time when voters are clearly fed up, a core issue emerges – is NHTSA properly staffed and budgeted?
Here is a thought starter:
Motor vehicles are responsible for 95% of the nation’s transportation deaths but only 1% of the Transportation budget. Surely, this needs some discussion and debate.
Towards that end – at least in theory- the House committee will look at what has happened at the Department of Transportation (DOT), which governs NHTSA, since the infamous Ford-Firestone tire recall. That tragedy, with its resulting hundreds of deaths, led to the setting up of a warning system so similar deadly safety issues would not recur.
The mechanism to do this, so-called TREAD Act, was passed in 2000. In it Congress required NHTSA to institute an Early Warning Reporting System – EWR, ultimately named ARTREMIS by NHTSA, among other safety reforms.
In addition, the TREAD Act authorized NHTSA to seek civil penalties of up to $5,000 per motor vehicle per day, with a maximum penalty of $15 million for all related violations, in the event that an auto manufacturer fails or refuses to comply with a NHTSA regulation.
The law also authorized criminal penalties for falsifying or withholding information with the intent to mislead the agency about a safety defect that has caused death or serious bodily injury.
In February 2010, NHTSA launched an inquiry to examine whether civil penalties would be appropriate in connection to the Toyota recall. The possiblity of criminal penalties remains open.
NHTSA’s Toyota Performance Lacking?
The House committee will concentrate on the safety agency’s performance in ongoing Toyota “sticking pedal” and unintended acceleration incidents. Here, more than 60 deaths and 38 serious injuries are now, alleged, to have occurred because of defects in Toyota and Lexus vehicles. Moreover, the reported accidents and incidents are continuing. So there is an argument that NHTSA failed to perform its watchdog duties.
Critics contend that ten years of flat budgets or “stagnation” – most of them under Republican rule – have stripped the agency of its ability to function effectively and the Tread Act provisions have, as a result, been ignored in ways that led to the Toyota tragedy.
The agency sure looks to be understaffed: NHTSA currently has 125 engineers working on auto safety, but only five are electrical engineers, and one other is a software engineer– that is right, one. (Click Here.)
Since this half a dozen seems a shockingly small number – at least to me – to oversee the safety of motor vehicles where automotive electronics are now pervasive, an “allocation of resources” debate at DOT is emerging among safety advocates. The debate will be in full view tomorrow.
It seems clear to me that DOT needs to reorganize around things that matter to voters, not special interests who are benefiting from pork – more than 70% of NHTSA’s budget is dedicated to highway safety grants to states and localities. In other words, some “bringing home the bacon” things that politicians can talk about.
During the three Congressional hearings on Toyota, tough questions were raised about whether NHTSA has the resources and the technical capability to conduct in-depth investigations into new and complex systems in vehicles, and to evaluate manufacturer’s claims about the operations of the vehicles on sale.
NHTSA’s Budget
NHTSA’s vehicle safety work is contained within the budget for “Operations and Research.” (Click Here.) NHTSA’s fiscal year 2011 budget request for this is $238.3 million- about $5 million lower than the FY 2010 request. Operations and research encompasses all vehicle safety work, and all of the NHTSA’s data collection and highway safety research. Much of the highway safety research is used to in the form of behavioral grants to states and localities, such as research into drunk driving, distracted driving, and seatbelt use. And in spite of NHTSA’s assertion that 6,000 deaths were caused last year by distracted driving, nothing by way of regulation has been done to stop its number one cause – cell phone use.
Within this Operations and Research budget request for 2011, $133 million is targeted for “vehicle safety research.” This is for all research and development into new car technologies, rulemaking, enforcement, and investigations work as well as the New Car Assessment Program, which provides crash ratings.
NHTSA’s budget request for the Office of Defects Investigation, which is a key part of NHTSA’s enforcement program, is flat from 2010, remaining below $10 million. Congressional testimony by former NHTSA Administrator Joan Claybrook, said that in the 1970s, 119 people worked in the enforcement division. Today there are only 57.
Critics, including Clarence Ditlow of the Center for Auto Safety, have been pointing out how easy it is for automakers to manipulate an understaffed NHTSA on recalls and service actions to improve profitability. And, indeed a now infamous memo from Toyota’s Washington staff boasted about how much money it saved the company by heading off or limiting earlier recalls that ultimately evolved into ongoing repairs on more than five million Toyota and Lexus vehicles for “floor mat entrapment or sticking accelerator pedals. Worse, there is still a debate about whether Toyota has an electronic or software problem, and investigations continue.
Critics also contend, with what looks to be increasing evidence from recalls supporting the claims, that the auto industry is far, far behind in the use of safe design practices governing the use of electronics and electronic control circuits that are in common in other industries.
Look at these facts:
- In 1980, there were 146 million vehicles on the road; today there are 256 million.
- In 1980, there 119 people working on enforcement at NHTSA; today there are only 57.
- In 1980, NHTSA had 2 cents per vehicle for enforcement; today it has less than a penny.
According to Ditlow, the National Accident Sampling System (NASS) is another safeguard that could have helped detect Toyota unintended acceleration earlier. The current budget is just over $12 million. With the money NASS investigates 4,000 crashes per year. This compares with a budget of about $10 million per year in the early 1980s providing for about 10,000 cases. The original intent was to investigate nearly 19,000 cases per year, which, at current costs, would require a budget of around $60 million.
More Regulation Needed?
Then there are the current regulations, which look to be far behind the times.
- The existing 1973 accelerator pedal standard was written before the advent of electronically controlled accelerators.
- There is no standard requiring electronic brake override in all automobiles one that favor braking if conflicting inputs of throttle and brake were detected by the engine control computer.
- There is no electronic magnetic interference protection standard.
- And perhaps most controversial of all, should here be a standard mandating the installation of Event Data Recorders, standardized read outs for them, and the provision for the collection of much more information than some makers currently gather?
Stay tuned.
This debate is far from over, like the Toyota recall matter. Whatever ensues, it will affect all automakers and current engineering and safety practices, I predict.