Word: nhtsa
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...rule in question, issued in 1977 by the NHTSA under the Carter Administration, required the installation of automatic crash-protection gear starting with large-and medium-size automobiles as of this autumn. Not long after Ronald Reagan took office, NHTSA Administrator Raymond Peck postponed that deadline for a year, claiming that the Government needed more time to study the regulation. In addition, the agency was concerned about the auto industry's deepening financial troubles and was eager to help give automakers at least some relief from the added design and manufacturing costs that would have resulted from installing...
...move was promptly attacked by a coalition of outraged insurance companies and various consumer groups, which petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington to overturn the action taken by Peck and the NHTSA. The coalition told the court that passive restraints could save some 9,000 lives a year on the nation's roads and highways...
...NHTSA has until Oct. 1 to say whether automakers will be able to meet the September 1983 deadline. Meanwhile the agency is free to issue a new set of auto-safety standards, subject to court review. The other choices open to overturn the appeals-court ruling are to seek congressional legislation that would repeal the regulation and, more likely, to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court...
Last week the NHTSA held the first of two public hearings on nine different alternative proposals that the agency has now put forward to relax or eliminate its impact standards, and insurance groups are incensed at all of them. Says Brian O'Neill, head of research for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety: "Rescinding this regulation would cost the public a lot of money. This is an example of cost-benefit analysis producing any answer you want." Adds Wayne Sorenson, research vice president of State Farm Insurance: "The current standard is working. We are worried that cost considerations...
...safety agency denies that its bumper move constitutes buckling under to Detroit. But, concedes Associate Administrator Barry Felrice, "the timing is awful. No matter where we come out, we will be raked over the coals for being anti-consumer." Whatever action the NHTSA does decide upon, the auto industry will still not be able to retool completely for new and cheaper bumpers until at least the 1985-model year...