Word: nhtsa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...company most affected is General Motors. The NHTSA, which has been looking into 573 reports of acceleration incidents in H-body cars (Buick LeSabres and Oldsmobile Delta 88s, for example) since last September, will now examine 110 accounts of similar problems in C-body cars (including Cadillac DeVilles, Buick Electras and Olds 98s). The H-body cars have been blamed for 343 accidents that resulted in one death and 145 injuries, while claims concerning C-body cars involved 67 accidents and 43 injuries. Since 1985, about 700,000 H-body cars and 1.4 million C-body models have been sold...
...auto companies to improve the average fuel economy of their new cars gradually to 27.5 m.p.g. by 1985. Now, three Administrations and a glut of cheaper oil later, gasoline-saving passions do not run quite so high. Last week the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which enforces the fuel-efficiency requirements, agreed to lower the standard to 26 m.p.g. for 1987 and 1988 cars...
Supporting the arguments of both Ford and GM, NHTSA Administrator Diane Steed said that a "higher standard would have resulted in the loss of jobs for tens of thousands of workers." Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca attacked the decision, calling it a "mockery of the law" and "unfair to manufacturers who have based their product plans on federal standards." Chrysler spent $4.8 billion in redesigning its cars, in part to get fuel consumption down to the mandated level. Now, notes the frustrated Iacocca, the Government is changing the rules in the middle of the game...
...NHTSA rescinded a Carter Administration rule requiring Detroit to install either automatic seat belts or air bags on all 1984 model cars. The Reagan Administration had argued that motorists would detach the automatic belts, rendering the rule ineffective. The U.S. Supreme Court found this reasoning capricious, possibly because it did not apply to the air-bag option, and NHTSA is now groping for a better reason to oppose the rule...
...highway agency has lost 30% of ts employees and sustained a 25% budget cut under Reagan. For two years, NHTSA did little about repeated complaints that the brakes on more than 1 million X-cars made by General Motors tended to lock, especially on wet roads, resulting in the deaths of at least 15 people in skidding accidents. But now NHTSA has suddenly reversed course. It ordered the recall of 240,000 X-cars last spring, and this month it filed a lawsuit against GM demanding the recall of 1.1 million 1980 X-cars and charging that GM had lied...