Lax recall scrutiny in U.S. puts consumers at risk

Safety regulator has steadily decreased its oversight, writes Lorraine Sommerfeld, opening the door to serious safety issues.

Will American decisions relating to vehicle safety potentially do harm to Canadians? If we continue to tag along behind our neighbour to the south when it comes to regulations, it just might.

Consumer Reports is blowing a whistle on a steady decrease in investigations by that nation’s top industry overseer, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

“NHTSA is the auto industry’s top safety regulator, and its investigations hold automakers accountable for safety defects, when they’re detected or reported, routinely spurring the recall of tens of millions of cars a year,” explains the magazine.

NHTSA’s investigations have led to today’s cars being safer than ever before. Some changes are implemented through tough recall strategies that hold manufacturers’ feet to the fire.

But perhaps just as importantly, these changes move the industry forward as a whole, as all manufacturers adopt better design and safety features.

Now it appears the U.S. government is ripping the teeth from the automotive industry’s biggest watchdog. And this should be a concern for Canadians.

We adopt nearly all of the standards set forth by the U.S. when it comes to our automobiles. Their regulations become our regulations; we have our own layers of consumer protection, and our federal government now has the power to enact recalls even if a manufacturer balks. But for the most part, we have simply caught a ride with the person going in the same direction.

From a high of 203 investigations launched in 1989, 2017 saw just 13. The agency hasn’t issued a civil fine since late 2015. The last year of Obama’s administration saw the start of the downward slope, but under Trump, the NHTSA hasn’t even had a chief in place. The deputy administrator, Heidi King, is set to be sworn in, which may be progress in the right direction. She’s been the acting head since Trump took office and the previous Obama appointee, Mark Rosekind, stepped down.

If it feels like there’s a lot of politics going on, that’s because there is. Trump campaigned on throwing out or minimizing regulations affecting nearly every facet of American life. Gutting the car industry’s top safety overseer, however, is not just an American problem. It’s ours, too.

Jason Levine, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, is part of a growing group of voices trying to warn the carbuying public that their safety is being punted.

“This administration appears to have a preference to not enforce the law,” he says. “This hands-off approach to law enforcement has led to a failure by NHTSA to conduct recall oversight in a way that ensures the success of the recall, and that holds manufacturers responsible for their defective vehicles.”

The kneecapping of NHTSA should set off alarms for consumers for a very important reason: it is the only way to find out how many complaints have been laid by owners for specific problems.

Levine sums it up, saying, “This sort of de-regulatory, antienforcement approach to auto safety puts drivers, passengers and pedestrians in the back seat and manufacturers at the wheel.”