NHTSA Wants Two New Defect Divisions

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wants to create two new divisions to help spot safety defects. 

Mark Rosekind (pictured above), NHTSA’s administrator, praised the White House budget proposal that calls for tripling NHTSA’s defect investigation funding. If approved, Rosekind will create a new trend analysis division that will look to catch major defects in cars early on as well as a new crash investigation division. A crash investigation unit already exists at NHTSA but it is part of the larger statistics and analysis group.

SEE ALSO: Congress Waffling on NHTSA Funding

“Let’s say it’s a NHTSA go-team for defects — when there’s a hot issue, you have a specialized team to go collect our own data,” Rosekind said.

This follows harsh criticism of NHTSA over failing to catch the GM ignition switch defect early on. NHTSA “lacked the focus and rigor expected of a federal safety regulator. The agency’s repeated failure to identify, let alone explore, the potential defect theory related to the ignition switch — even after it was spelled out in a report the agency commissioned — is inexcusable,” said a House Republican report.

NHTSA’s funding has remained flat for over a decade. If the new proposal passes, NHTSA will boost its entire team from about 50 to over 100.

 [Source: Detroit News]