Is Public Safety Still NHTSA’s Priority?

The primary mission of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is to save lives, prevent injuries, and reduce the economic costs from road traffic crashes, according to its Vehicle Safety and Fuel Economy Rulemaking and Research Priority Plan for 2011-2013. Although this has been the agency’s objective since it was established by the Highway Safety Act in 1970, its actions—or inactions—in recent years may have contributed to hundreds of crashes resulting in lawsuits against Toyota, including wrongful death and personal injury cases currently underway in Orange County, California, explains an Orange County car accident attorney. NHTSA’s handling of the investigations into unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles and battery-related fires in Chevrolet Volts has led many safety advocates and attorneys to question whether public safety is still the agency’s priority.

As early as 2007, NHTSA began receiving complaints of unintended acceleration incidents involving Toyota vehicles. When the agency had amassed 3,000 reports of such incidents, 93 of which allegedly resulted in fatality, Congress requested that the agency investigate whether defects in the vehicles’ electronics systems were contributing to unintended acceleration. After collaborating with the NASA Engineering Safety Center to study the vehicles’ electronic circuitry, software codes, and response to electromagnetic radiation, the agency closed its investigation in early 2011, concluding that mechanical problems were to blame. According to NHTSA, sticky accelerator pedals and floor mats were the cause of unintended acceleration.

Not long after NHTSA released the findings on its study, the agency received a report of several incidents of unintended acceleration in a 2003 Prius in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Joseph H. McClelland, a senior government official and the owner of the vehicle, contends that during each incident he checked the floor mats and the accelerator pedal to ensure neither were stuck and therefore causing the unintended acceleration.

NHTSA investigators visited McClelland on May 17, 2011 and confirmed his claim, videotaping each unintentional acceleration event and, at one point, extracting data from the vehicles’ electronic control module (ECM); this data revealed that the on-board computer was sending commands to the engine to accelerate to more than twice its idling speed while the accelerator was not being applied, reported auto safety advocacy firm, Safety Research and Strategies (SRS).

Despite the strong indication that electronic defects in Toyota vehicles are possibly a contributing factor to unintended acceleration, NHTSA chose not to investigate the matter, instead attributing the incidents its engineers had witnessed to problems related to the vehicle’s age. Moreover, when SRS requested records from the NHTSA engineers’ initial investigation of unintentional acceleration in McClelland’s Prius, the agency only supplied a portion of the written report, opting to withhold the videos and data information. This prompted SRS to file a lawsuit against the agency, alleging it violated the Freedom of Information Act.

In the midst of concerns about the accuracy of NHTSA’s report on unintended acceleration, it was revealed that the agency had failed to immediately inform the public of a potential defect to the Chevrolet Volt. Last spring, NHTSA conducted a crash test on the Volt; weeks later the vehicle’s battery pack ignited into flames. Then after another test in November, a second battery pack caught fire, reported MSNBC.com. Although the agency investigated these incidents, it did not report the first fire for five months, prompting accusations that the agency tried to cover up the incident. Moreover, it has not produced the records confirming that such fires did not occur in subsequent tests of the vehicles.

The fact that NHTSA released statements of its continued support for electric vehicles while it was investigating a potentially dangerous defect in the Volt further suggests the agency my have been biased in its handling of the investigation.

Given the toll of unintended acceleration on the public—several car accidents resulting in deaths and injuries, for which litigation is currently underway in Orange County—any evidence of alternative causes should have prompted extensive investigation by NHTSA. The fact that NHTSA is withholding the videos and other records of the investigation of Joseph McClelland’s Prius leaves many safety advocates and attorneys questioning whether it was completely honest about its findings. The agency’s handling of the Volt investigation has also elicited concerns, including whether public safety is still its priority.