Automakers Call on Congress to Avoid Passing Defective Legislation
27 September 2000
Automakers Call on Congress to Avoid Passing Defective Legislation
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 The following is a statement by
Josephine S. Cooper, President and CEO, Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers
on proposed safety legislation in the U.S. Congress:
"The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers supports the intent of safety
legislation being considered on Capitol Hill this week. Faster information
flow will help improve both early detection and speedy correction of safety-
related defects in vehicles and motor vehicle equipment.
"In its haste to further protect consumers from potential safety defects,
Congress should not produce defective legislation. As Congress considers how
to move forward, we are providing information on the real-world limits and
unintended negative consequences of certain legislative proposals. We are
trying to help ensure that any safety legislation is workable, enforceable,
and focused in areas that make a real difference.
"One area of concern is criminal penalties. In the effort to criminalize
egregious disregard for public safety, vaguely worded proposed legislation may
inadvertently criminalize specific products and legitimate engineering design
decisions.
"For 34 years, the Motor Vehicle Safety Act has defined a 'defect' only as
a 'defect.' It is a subjective definition often requiring a judgment call,
and reasonable people can disagree on what constitutes a safety-related defect
under the Act. For example, several years ago federal courts agreed with a
vehicle manufacturer that the brake design of one of its models was not
defective, even though the federal government had sued that company to compel
a recall. The legislation being considered today could have subjected such
good faith disagreements to criminal sanctions.
"The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration agrees there is not
always a bright line where it is clear that a safety-related defect exists.
In testimony last week, the NHTSA Administrator acknowledged that the agency
takes 16 months on average to determine if a safety-related defect exists.
Proposed legislation would put someone in jail for not quickly identifying a
defect that may exist, even when the defect in question is not immediately
obvious to expert investigators after more than a year of examination.
"As another example of real-world considerations, some new worldwide data
collection proposals, which are not even related to safety or products sold in
America, would generate mountains of paper that would bury any useful insights
the data might contain. This would actually inhibit efforts to improve auto
safety. While the industry supports providing NHTSA with additional
information that would help the agency and the industry to identify safety-
related defects sooner, many of the legislative proposals go far beyond this
reasonable goal, mandating the collection and analysis of specific
information, regardless of whether NHTSA finds such information useful.
"For example, it is not feasible to expect manufacturers to identify and
investigate every injury-producing crash. NHTSA already has a database of
every motor vehicle fatality, but there are more than 17,000 police-reported
crashes every day in the U.S. alone. This legislation would include crashes
in all other countries as well, where crash investigations can be even more
difficult to investigate because record keeping is often scarce, inconsistent
and non-centralized. Analyzing and reporting these crashes to NHTSA will
produce hundreds of thousands of pages of paper, but will not add to the base
of knowledge on safety defect trends because most motor vehicle crashes are
not caused by defects.
"Even if these numbers were not so daunting, there are practical reasons
why such a reporting requirement is not feasible. No automotive manufacturer
is routinely notified of such accidents. There is no orderly system for
finding out that a crash occurred unless the owner (or police, an insurance
company, or a hospital) elects to notify the manufacturer. Yet police
investigations, insurance liability, and medical records privacy preclude such
notification. Even if a manufacturer learns of an accident, the damaged
vehicle would likely have been repaired or junked, making it difficult to
perform a meaningful analysis of the causes of the accident. If the vehicle
has not been repaired yet, such an investigation would prevent the owner from
having the vehicle repaired. This is simply not a workable proposal.
"Congress needs to recognize the real-world limits and consequences of
possible legislative measures before taking action. We share the goals of the
proposed legislation; however, Congress should not rush to enact measures that
may well have the unintended effect of retarding, not accelerating, early
detection and speedy correction of safety-related defects in vehicles and
motor vehicle equipment."