History
In 1965 and 1966, public pressure grew in the U.S. to increase the safety of cars, culminating with the publishing of Unsafe at Any Speed, by Ralph Nader, an activist lawyer, and the National Academy of Sciences' "Accidental Death and Disability—The Neglected Disease of Modern Society".
In 1966, Congress held a series of highly publicized hearings regarding highway safety, passed legislation to make installation of seat belts mandatory, and enacted Pub.L. 89-563, Pub.L. 89-564, and Pub.L. 89-670 which created the U.S. Department of Transportation on October 15, 1966. This legislation created several predecessor agencies which would eventually become NHTSA, including the National Traffic Safety Agency, the National Highway Safety Agency, and the National Highway Safety Bureau. Once the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) came into effect, vehicles not certified by the maker or importer as compliant with US safety standards were no longer legal to import into the United States.
NHTSA was officially established in 1970 by the Highway Safety Act of 1970 (Title II of Pub.L. 91-605, 84 Stat. 1713, enacted December 31, 1970, at 84 Stat. 1739). In 1972, the Motor Vehicle Information and Cost Savings Act (Pub.L. 92-513, 86 Stat. 947, enacted October 20, 1972) expanded NHTSA's scope to include consumer information programs. Since then, automobiles have become far better in protecting their occupants in vehicle impacts. The number of deaths on American highways hovers around 40,000 annually, a lower death rate per vehicle-mile travelled than in the 1960s.
NHTSA has conducted numerous high-profile investigations of automotive safety issues, including the Audi 5000/60 Minutes affair, the Ford Explorer rollover problem and the Toyota: Sticky accelerator pedal problem. The agency has introduced a proposal to mandate Electronic Stability Control on all passenger vehicles by the 2012 model year. This technology was first brought to public attention in 1997, with the Swedish moose test.
NHTSA's activities provide today's consumers with a great deal of auto safety information that was not generally available before the agency existed.
Read more about this topic: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
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