Word: nhtsa
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Claybrook's appointment to NHTSA was greeted with cries of "Astounding!" and "Appalling!" from automakers in Detroit, where she was known as the "Dragon Lady." Her past days as a lower-level Government aide and then as Nader's chief lobbyist and director of his Congress Watch had shown her to be extremely zealous on auto safety. Foreman, who headed the Consumer Federation of America, provoked outcries from farm commodity producers when she became Assistant Agriculture Secretary. Each woman continues to be criticized, but now by Nader as well. He has charged that Claybrook is "a disaster" and that Foreman...
...company had known for some time that these tires are a severe problem, with manydefective failures," Thunder Joan Claybrook, chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Last week, after months of angry negotiations, NHTSA pressed an agreement out of Firestone to recall its old 500 model steel-belted radials, which had experienced an unusual number of tread separations and blowouts...
...agreement capped a classic corporate public relations fiasco for Firestone - and a number of personal tragedies for others. Complaints on the 500s started rolling in several years ago. In July the NHTSA recommended that Firestone recall all the 500s still on the road. The company, which had continued producing some of the tires until early this year, refused. Recent information released by NHTSA suggested that 41 deaths and 65 injuries were connected with 500-series tire failures. While the evidence seemed conclusive, Firestone argued all along that no specific defects in the tire had ever been proved...
...according to the agreement, Firestone will have less than 60 days to begin notifying owners by mail, television, radio and print. Claybrook says that NHTSA will keep a close watch on the notification campaign: "We will not leave it up to Firestone to determine the amount or the content of the advertising." Amid all else, Firestone is worried about reports that some people have begun rummaging through dumps in search of 500s that could conceivably be turned in for new 721s. The company alerted dealers to start asking questions if someone wheels in with a whole truckload of 500s...
...company has received some strong support from Washington. After conducting the same road tests as did Consumers Union on the two front-wheel-drive cars, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported the same results-but ruled that the cars are every bit as safe as Chrysler contends. NHTSA argued that the tests are, in effect, irrelevant to driving situations that motorists encounter in the real world...