Highway traffic safety agency tries to keep pace

Richard and Carolyn Carlson were driving through rural Colorado in February 2005 when they hit a patch of black ice. Their Chrysler PT Cruiser spun backward into an embankment, causing the back of Carolyn's seat to collapse. She was hurled into the roof and partway through the rear window.
In an instant, Carolyn Carlson became a quadriplegic and one of the thousands of Americans who suffer injuries, or death, each year in crashes in which car seats break.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has looked at forcing automakers to build stronger seats, first considering new rules in the early 1990s. But automakers objected, arguing that the matter needed more study, and in 2004 the agency formally shelved the issue.

The agency's handling of the seat-back regulation illustrates what has become a frequent criticism of NHTSA: that it is too slow to identify potential safety problems, and even slower to order potentially lifesaving fixes.

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The agency has not ordered a mandatory recall since 1979 and the largest fine it has ever issued was $1 million.

NHTSA has come under a new spotlight in recent months amid its investigation of sudden-acceleration problems in Toyota and Lexus vehicles that led to the automaker's largest-ever recall.

After the problems surfaced, the agency said more motorists have died in Toyota vehicles associated with sudden acceleration in the last decade than in cars made by all other manufacturers combined.

Yet despite eight NHTSA investigations of sudden-acceleration problems involving Toyota and Lexus vehicles since 2003, the problem persisted — ultimately leading to a massive, 4.3-million vehicle recall that the automaker initiated in hopes of finally putting the matter to rest.

Officials at NHTSA and the Department of Transportation have rejected requests for interviews to discuss the agency's operations. In a statement, NHTSA said safety was its No. 1 priority but acknowledged that "in past years, the agency has been short-staffed and is working to address this issue."

The agency said it was adding 20 full-time employees to help oversee auto safety, combat drunken and distracted driving, and persuade people to wear their seat belts.

NHTSA's budget for defect investigations and safety standards has shrunk in real terms for years, in a period when the number of models on the market multiplied, computer-driven electronics replaced mechanical functions and the auto industry was globalizing.

"Vehicles are much more complex, much more computerized," said Ricardo Martinez, who served for six years in the 1990s as NHTSA's administrator. "So, the question is, have the resources gone up to follow it? And the answer is no."

To its credit, NHTSA can point to a 13 percent drop in the rate of highway fatalities since 2005 — thanks in part to reductions in drunken-driving crashes, increased seat-belt use and new safety features on vehicles, such as air bags.

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