November 7, 2014
Since the General Motors ignition switch debacle blew wide open last spring, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has defended its years-long failure to recall the deadly vehicles by arguing that several other vehicle models had more consumer injury-crash complaints related to airbag non-deployment (ABND) than either the 2005-2006 Cobalt or the 2003-2005 Ion. But […]
October 30, 2014
Mercedes seat warmers are burning holes in their customers – but, really, who cares? The Early Warning Reporting system, mandated by Congress in 2000 and officially established by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for the first collection of data in 2003 was supposed to use the power of data to detect defects at a […]
October 27, 2014
Last Monday, a federal jury in Marshall, Texas forced the Federal Highway Administration to do what state directors of transportation could not – launch an investigation into the crashworthiness of the ET-Plus guardrail end terminal. The agency, which, two years ago accepted Trinity Industries’ old test reports and spent most of its efforts deflecting the […]
October 23, 2014
This week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a Consumer Advisory urging “owners of certain Toyota, Honda, Mazda, BMW, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors vehicles to act immediately on recall notices to replace defective Takata airbags.” The announcement was accompanied by an agency web page with an incomplete list of vehicles […]
October 21, 2014
A jury in Marshall County, Texas found that Trinity Industries, a global manufacturer of highway safety equipment, defrauded the federal government in 2005, when it won approval for an energy-absorbing guardrail end terminal that featured design changes that saved the company $50,000 annually. In finding that Trinity had knowingly made a false claim to the […]
October 14, 2014
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has published a Federal Register Notice seeking comments on the possibility of writing regulations to ensure the safety of automotive electronics. The 10-page request for comments, satisfying a directive from the federal legislation known as MAP–21 to “complete an examination of the need for safety standards with regard to […]
September 26, 2014
In the wake of a study on the safety of energy-absorbing guardrail end treatments sponsored by The Safety Institute, Missouri and Massachusetts DOT officials have announced that they will no longer consider the ET-Plus, manufactured by Trinity Industries, as approved highway safety equipment and are dropping the design from current and future construction projects. Last […]
September 25, 2014
A Leon County, Florida state judge has found that the state Department of Transportation violated the Public Records Act when it allowed guardrail manufacturer Trinity Industries to review thousands of emails involving Florida state officials before releasing them to Safety Research & Strategies. The stipulated Final Judgment, signed on September 16 by Circuit Court Judge […]
September 23, 2014
Last week, two young clean-cut and preternaturally earnest lawyers travelled from the D.C. and New York offices of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP to meet with Bob and Kathy Ruginis, the Bristol, RI couple who reported their Unintended Acceleration incident while parking to the Toyota Special Monitor and to NHTSA. To recap: On June […]
September 16, 2014
Another big day for NHTSA as the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance will hold a hearings today at 2:30 pm titled “Oversight of and Policy Considerations for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,” chaired by Subcommittee Chairman Claire McCaskill (D-MO). Earlier today House Committee on […]