The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have revealed their plans to more aggressively enforce automobile safety after admitting to missing signs of ignition problems affecting millions of GM vehicles. The Administration will be using a team of auto safety system experts who will spend a year advising the NHTSA about implementing new reforms to strengthen its investigation processes, according to U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.
The team will assist the agency in implementing operational changes outlined in a newly released internal report, “NHTSA’s Path Forward.” The report includes a review of NHTSA’s actions surrounding the General Motors ignition switch recall as well as identifies shortcomings of NHTSA’s defect investigation. Some of the suggested improvements include:
- Increase the auto industry’s accountability by focusing on audits and collecting information
- Increase the NHTSA’s knowledge of new and emerging technologies
- Enhance the ODI’s approach to detection and analysis
- Enhance information management, analysis, and sharing
- Establish controls for assessing potential defects
- Ensure effective communications and coordination within ODI and between ODI and the Special Crash Investigation Division
- Launch an Internal Risk Control Innovations Program that will bring together NHTSA staff to address emerging safety risks affecting NHTSA’s enforcement, vehicle safety, and behavioral safety efforts.
The NHTSA said they have already changed some of the practices addressed by the report. It now maintains detailed records of issues presented to a defects panel, has Special Crash Investigations staff present at all defect panel meetings, and uses a detailed checklist for investigations to ensure that all relevant documents are reviewed properly.
The NHTSA have also released a second report, which addresses the budgetary and workforce boosts needed to implement changes into the investigation into potential auto defects. This report, “Workforce Assessment: The Future of NHTSA’s Defects Investigations,” offers two separate models. The “minimum boost” model requires increases of $23.64 million and 92 full-time staff members and the “new paradigm” model, which proposes dramatic changes to NHTSA’s enforcement program and requires increases of $89 million and 380 full-time staff members, according to the report.
