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Highway Safety Administrator Plans to Quit

Bush appointee's abrupt departure leaves roof strength, fuel economy rules undone

By Joe Benton
ConsumerAffairs.com

July 15, 2008

Nicole Nason reportedly told colleagues of her decision at a meeting earlier in the day.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, representing the Detroit 3, Toyota and 6 other automakers, issued a statement crediting Nason with "involving all stakeholders in proactively working on critical safety issues."

Nason was a lawyer and lobbyist for the Department of Transportation where she was the assistant secretary for governmental affairs before winning her NHTSA job.

Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook, at the time, criticized Nason's appointment noting that as head of NHTSA, Nason would be in the position of implementing measures that she had opposed as a lobbyist for the government.

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader characterized Nason's appointment as proof that NHTSA was "a consulting agency to Detroit" and federal regulation was essentially dead.

During Nason's 2 year tenure at NHTSA, the agency has proposed a 4.5 percent annual increase in U.S. fuel economy standards starting with the 2011 model year. The proposal mandates a fleet-wide fuel economy of 35 mpg by 2020.

U.S. automakers consider the proposal to be too aggressive and have claimed the plan will cost more than 80 thousand jobs and slash auto sales by more than 850 thousand vehicles.

The final draft of the fuel standards is due later in the year.

Roof crush

A new NHTSA regulation revising the 35-year-old roof crush standards is on hold at the agency. NHTSA has reported to Congress that the standard will not be completed until October.

The current roof-crush standard requires a vehicle to withstand 1.5 times its weight in a rollover crash. The NHTSA proposal under consideration would require that a roof withstand a force equal to 2.5 times the vehicle weight while maintaining sufficient head room for an average size adult male wearing a seat belt to avoid being struck.

The new rule will also apply to vehicles up to 10,000 pounds, covering many light trucks.

Safety ratings

Nason presided over the completion of a new safety rating system at NHTSA that includes new crash tests and methods of measuring injuries. The new rating system is supposed to make a top safety rating more difficult for an automaker to win.

Under the current system, almost every vehicle on the market wins the the top 5-star award, making consumer comparison more difficult.

NHTSA announced in 2006 shortly after NASON took over as head of the agency, that new federal safety regulations would require electronic stability control on vehicles sold in the U.S by the 2012 model year.

During her term as administrator of NHTSA, the agency took steps to revise regulations for child seat ratings and to require seat belts on some small school buses.

Nason also helped to compell the recall of defective tires imported from China.

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