NHTSA Poised for Potential Deregulation Bonanza on Automotive Safety Aids

We knew the Trump administration wanted to deregulate the automotive industry in order to free it from any production hangups, be it imagined or genuine. However, some of the items under consideration for potential elimination are safety features that seem silly to go without. At the top of that list is the requirement that all electrically driven vehicles must emit noise to alert pedestrians to their presence.

However, this isn’t the only safety feature at risk of becoming an optional extra. In budget documents provided to Congress, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration specified it is considering six separate areas for deregulation. Those include the modern standard for rear-view mirrors and backup cameras in passenger cars, mandatory electronic stability-control units for heavy trucks, and a rule allowing car dealers to install switches to deactivate airbags in customer vehicles.

While some of the rules could be abolished entirely, others are more likely to undergo some gentle retooling to provide automakers greater flexibility. Automakers have long pressed for the revamp of some antiquated, NHTSA-administered safety standards in order to permit the introduction of newer technologies. Still, eliminating any safety mandate is likely to raise the ire of consumer safety advocates, whether the end goal is well-intentioned or not.

Considering agencies throughout the federal government view expansive deregulation as a central tenant of President Trump’s plan to abolish roadblocks to corporate productivity, safety groups may have plenty to gripe about — especially if the new-and-improved safety technologies automakers are promising don’t immediately arrive.

As usual, nothing is ever as one-dimensional as any singular group would like it to be.

“This looks like to me that the agency was trying to figure out what things they didn’t really need and what things really aggravated the manufacturers,” Joan Claybrook, former NHTSA administrator under President Jimmy Carter and president of Public Citizen, told Bloomberg. “But I do think the agency does have the obligation to explain these things when they take effect.”

So far, the NHTSA hasn’t specified which of the regulatory issues it wants to abolish or reshape — only that it was reassessing their validity.

It would certainly be somewhat hypocritical for the agency to outright eliminate the majority, though. The NHTSA’s own research estimates the electronic stability control mandate for trucks would prevent around 1,420 to 1,760 crashes and 40 to 49 deaths annually. “It’s bad policy to take off the books policies that are effective now and saving lives,” said Henry Jasny, senior vice president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.

Likewise, the EV noise requirement was estimated to prevent some 2,400 pedestrian injuries per year once electric vehicles became ubiquitous.

The U.S. Transportation Department has already finalized rules requiring electric vehicles and hybrids to emit “alert sounds” at speeds below 18.6 miles per hour, warning cyclists, pedestrians, and the blind of the approaching danger. It did so just last December. While the rules were set to take effect last February, the Trump administration delayed the date until September at the request of various automakers.

“[The] NHTSA is working with the new administration on its regulatory portfolio and priorities, including pending petitions for reconsideration,” the agency said in its official statement.