NHTSA Delays Updates to the Five-Star Safety Rating Program

Media Contact: Lisa McDonald, Vice President of Communications, 202-207-2829  

Washington, DC— The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) postponed the effective date of updates to the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), which is a Five-Star Safety Rating Program that provides consumers with important information to compare the safety of different vehicles.  

“Safety delayed is safety denied,” said Daniel Greene, the Senior Director of Consumer Protection & Product Safety.  “NHTSA’s New Car Assessment Program should be a valuable tool of illumination, providing consumers with vital information necessary to compare the safety of different vehicles.  Regrettably, the five-star safety rating has become a mere participation trophy, with nearly all manufacturers earning four or five stars.  NHTSA must abide by the law and consumer consensus and update NCAP.” 

As required by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, NHTSA updated NCAP in 2024 to establish pedestrian crashworthiness ratings, update automatic emergency brake ratings, and create ratings for blind spot warning, blind spot intervention, lane keeping assist, and pedestrian automatic emergency braking.  In response to a request from the automobile manufacturers’ trade association, NHTSA has postponed the effective date of these updates for one model year. 

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About the National Consumers League (NCL)      

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.   

With 44,000 dead every year, now is not the time to defund traffic safety

Media Contact: Lisa McDonald, Vice President of Communications, 202-207-2829 

Washington, DC – The National Consumers League (NCL) and 17 other safety organizations today sent a letter to the House Appropriations Committee calling on Congress to provide the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) with the resources necessary to reduce the unacceptably high number of deaths and injuries caused by traffic crashes.    

“NHTSA is our nation’s principal automobile safety regulator, charged with reducing deaths and injuries associated with traffic crashes,” says NCL Senior Director of Consumer Protection & Product Safety, Daniel Greene.  “With NHTSA on the beat, traffic safety is a priority, not an afterthought. We urge the committee to reject significant cuts to NHTSA proposed in the FY 2026 Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development (THUD) Appropriations bill.” 

A copy of the letter can be found HERE 

Letter cosigners: 

National Consumers League 

Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety 

Center for Auto Safety 

Consumer Federation of America 

Consumer Reports 

Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety 

Families for Safe Streets 

Impact Teen Drivers 

Kids and Car Safety 

League of American Bicyclists 

National Coalition for Safer Roads 

National Safety Council 

Safe Kids Worldwide 

Safety Research & Strategies 

Stopdistrations.org 

The Dawn Project 

Truck Safety Coalition 

Vision Zero Network 

Whirlwind Wheelchair International 

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About the National Consumers League (NCL)      

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.  

NCL, 17 safety organizations, call on Congress to provide robust resources to NHTSA  

Media Contact: Lisa McDonald, Vice President of Communications, 202-207-2829  

Washington, DC – The National Consumers League (NCL) and 17 other safety organizations today sent a letter to the House Appropriations Committee calling on Congress to provide the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) with the resources necessary to reduce the unacceptably high number of deaths and injuries caused by traffic crashes.   

“Traffic crashes do not have to be the price we pay for commuting to work, dropping the kids off at school, or picking up groceries,” says NCL Senior Director of Consumer Protection & Product Safety, Daniel Greene.  “By providing NHTSA with sufficient resources to support revolutionary safety technologies, educate the motoring public, and improve the design, construction, and performance of motor vehicles, we can dramatically improve roadway safety.”     

Today, the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development (THUD) Subcommittee is marking up the FY 2026 THUD bill.  On Thursday, the Appropriations Committee is marking up the FY 2026 THUD bill.  

A copy of the letter can be found HERE 

Letter cosigners:  

National Consumers League  

Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety  

Center for Auto Safety  

Consumer Federation of America  

Consumer Reports  

Families for Safe Streets  

Impact Teen Drivers  

Kids and Car Safety  

League of American Bicyclists  

National Coalition for Safety Roads  

National Safety Council  

PeopleForBikes  

Safe Kids Worldwide  

Safety Research & Strategies  

The Dawn Project  

Truck Safety Coalition  

Vision Zero Network  

Whirlwind Wheelchair International  

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About the National Consumers League (NCL)       

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org

NCL sounds the alarm on bigger freight trucks: “a dangerous gamble for public safety and our roads”

Media Contact: Lisa McDonald, Vice President of Communications, 202-207-2829    

Washington, DC – The National Consumers League (NCL) is strongly opposing federal proposals to allow significantly longer and heavier freight trucks on U.S. highways, calling the move a significant threat to public safety, infrastructure, and taxpayers.  

In an opinion piece published today in The Hill, NCL’s Senior Director of Consumer Protection & Product Safety, Daniel Greene, joined David Williams, the President of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, to warn lawmakers and the public about the dangers of weakening truck size and weight limits.  

Increasing size and weight limits would exacerbate the nation’s traffic safety crisis,” write Greene and Williams.The heavier the truck, the greater the crash forces, increasing the lethality accidents.”  

Data cited in the article show that trucks weighing 91,000 pounds or more are up to 400 percent more likely to be involved in major crashes and cause significantly more damage to roads and bridges. Replacing weakened infrastructure to accommodate these trucks could cost taxpayers $80 billion, according to a 2023 analysis.  

Politicians and advocacy groups across the political spectrum may not always agree on the best way to fix America’s roads, but they should agree that introducing larger and heavier vehicles is a recipe for disaster,” Greene and Williams continued. Lawmakers should swerve away from these policy potholes and commit to real bipartisan protections.”  

 NCL is calling on Congress to uphold current truck size and weight limits and reject efforts to allow heavier trucks or longer multi-trailer rigs on U.S. highways. 

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About the National Consumers League (NCL)       

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.     

NCL calls on Congress to improve traffic safety 

Media Contact: Lisa McDonald, Vice President of Communications, 202-207-2829 

Washington, DC — In advance of a subcommittee hearing on motor vehicle safety, the National Consumers League (NCL) sent a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee urging lawmakers to take decisive action to curb the unacceptable number of deaths and injuries that occur due to traffic crashes.  

“The death and destruction on our nation’s roads does not have to be the price we pay for commuting to work, dropping the kids off at school, or picking up groceries,” the letter states.  “By harnessing revolutionary safety technologies, educating the motoring public, and improving the design, construction, and performance of motor vehicles, we can make our roadways safer.” 

In the letter, NCL provides several policy proposals to improve traffic safety. 

A copy of the letter can be found HERE 

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About the National Consumers League (NCL)      

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.    

Don’t throw auto safety in reverse

By Daniel Greene, Senior Director of Consumer Protection & Product Safety Policy

If traffic safety were a war, we’d be losing.   

Our nation suffers approximately 40,000 deaths and 2.6 million injuries to traffic crashes each year.   

That’s enough fatalities to fill the average Major League Baseball stadium.  Enough injuries to affect nearly every resident of the state of Alabama. 

Traffic crashes cost society nearly a trillion dollars in medical bills, emergency services, lost productivity, insurance costs, workplace loss, legal costs, and property damage.  That’s enough money to buy more than 26 million mid-size SUVs; ten million more than the total number of cars sold in 2024.   

No Congressional district has been spared.  No community is immune.   

Yet, the death and destruction on our nation’s roads does not have to be the price we pay for commuting to work, dropping the kids off at school, or picking up groceries.  By harnessing revolutionary safety technologies, educating the motoring public, and improving the design, construction and performance of motor vehicles, we can dramatically improve roadway safety.   

Fortunately, there is a federal agency responsible for carrying out such activities.  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is our nation’s principal automobile safety regulator, charged with reducing death and injuries associated with traffic accidents.  NHTSA carries out its lifesaving mission by establishing safety standards, investigating defects, enforcing recalls, and providing states resources for driver education, risky driving countermeasures, and roadside safety. 

NHTSA has delivered.  Safety features that were once rare and unique are now common and conventional: seatbelts, airbags, and crumple zones, to name a few.  Many of these features were adopted to comply with increasingly ambitious safety standards. The result: fewer fatalities and injuries on our nation’s roads. 

From 1968 through 2019, NHTSA’s safety standards prevented over 860,000 deaths, 49 million injuries, and damage to 65 million vehicles, generating over $17.3 trillion in societal benefits.  In 2019 alone, standards prevented 40,000 deaths, 1.9 million injuries, and damage to 3.8 million vehicles.  

NHTSA has also successfully taken unsafe vehicles off our nation’s roadways.  Since 1968, NHTSA has participated in the recall of more than 390 million vehicles, 66 million pieces of motor vehicle equipment, 46 million tires, and 42 million car seats due to safety defects.   

NHTSA has compelled manufacturers to replace tens of millions of volatile and explosive airbags, millions of defective tires prone to tread separation, and millions of sticky car seat buckles that entrap children.  The agency has facilitated the remedy of millions of vehicles with incidents of unintended acceleration, millions of faulty ignition switches that deactivate the engine and airbags while a vehicle is in motion, and “self-driving” technology that cannot safely perform the driving task. 

NTHSA is on the cusp of ushering in new transformational safety technologies that may exceed the lifesaving effects of seatbelts and airbags.  The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law mandates that NHTSA support the deployment of several sophisticated safety technologies:   

  • Drunk and impaired driving prevention technology: Over 13,000 people were killed in drunk driving crashes in 2022.    
  • Crash avoidance technology: Forward collision warning and automatic emergency brakes have been shown to reduce injuries associated with front-to-rear crashes by 56 percent.  Lane departure warnings could reduce single-vehicle, sideswipe, and head-on crashes causing injury by 21 percent.  Blind-spot detection has been shown to reduce lane-change crashes that result in injuries by 23 percent.   
  • Driver monitoring systems: Distracted driving claimed an estimated 12,405 lives in 2021.  Drowsy driving caused 664 deaths that same year.   

Many of these requirements are actively being implemented but are not yet finalized.   

With NHTSA on the beat, safety is a priority and not an afterthought.  It must be built into the design, construction, and performance of each vehicle.  It must be engrained in every bolt, sensor, and line of code of a vehicle.   

But this vital safety agency is under unprecedented assault.  Championed by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, the Trump Administration has launched a shock and awe campaign, taking a chainsaw to the key pillars of a well-functioning government.  The indiscriminate firing of civil servants, unlawful impoundment of congressionally directed spending, and work stoppages have had deeply destabilizing effects across the federal government.  The chaos has wreaked havoc on NHTSA’s ability to carry out its most basic functions.    

Approximately 1 in 20 NHTSA employees were fired in the February purge of probationary workers.  That included researchers studying impaired driving and traffic safety measures.  Several members of the Office of Defect Investigations, which is responsible for investigating defects and mandating recalls, have been dismissed.  The Office has been increasingly scrutinizing Tesla, which Elon Musk owns.  Employees within the Department of Transportation cannot access their former colleagues’ files, making it virtually impossible to continue their work.  

Through an Executive Order, the Trump Administration has directed federal agencies to “identify at least 10 existing rules, regulations, or guidance documents to be repealed” for every new rule, regulation, or guidance that is promulgated.  As of December, NHTSA had yet to finalize 19 rulemakings mandated by Congress, all through bipartisan legislation.  In the Fall Unified Regulatory Agenda, NHTSA identified 56 ongoing rulemaking proceedings, some of which had been completed prior to Trump taking office.  It may not even be possible for NHTSA to identify the hundreds of existing rules, regulations, and guidance documents necessary to finalize Congressionally directed and ongoing rulemakings while complying with the 10-to-1 rule. 

If the past is a prologue, vital automobile safety activities may fall by the wayside.  During the Biden Administration, NHTSA finalized 29 rules creating or modernizing safety standards.  The first Trump Administration finalized only nine such rules.  The Biden Administration conducted 224 investigations of potential safety defects.  The first Trump Administration initiated only 103.   

Worse yet, deeper cuts may be forthcoming.  Every federal agency was required to produce an Agency Reduction in Force and Reorganization Plan by March 13, 2025.  Such plans must seek to achieve significant staff reductions, reduced budgets, and reduced real property footprint. 

Some are calling on NHTSA’s budget to be slashed by 60 percent and the workforce reduced by 30 percent, returning the agency to 1990s-era levels.  Such plans include cutting state safety grants by 75 percent, slashing crash test facilities and testing by 75 percent, and ending vital safety initiatives like the adoption of the first female crash test dummy.  Most Americans do not want to trade in their current vehicle for a 1990s model.  We shouldn’t revert to a 1990s-era auto safety regulatory agency.   

The death and destruction on our nation’s roads is not an inevitability, but a choice. A choice to not treat traffic safety like the public health emergency it so clearly is. A choice to remain complacent.  A choice to accept the status quo.   

I contend that America should make a different choice: no more victims.  Let’s chart a course towards vision zero, in which there are no traffic fatalities or serious injuries.  And let’s ensure we equip NHTSA with the resources, staff, and authorities necessary to make that vision a reality.   

NCL blasts the purge of the nation’s auto safety regulator

Media Contact: Lisa McDonald, Vice President of Communication, 202-207-2829  

Washington, DC – The National Consumers League (NCL) opposes the Trump Administration’s firing of public servants working at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the nation’s principal automobile safety regulator.  According to reports, the Trump Administration fired hundreds of people at the Department of Transportation, including employees at NHTSA.

“NHTSA cannot oversee and promote automotive safety without world-class staff, many of whom have served behind the scenes for decades doing the day to day work of making the cars safer and making the agency run,” said Daniel Greene, Senior Director of Consumer Protection & Product Safety.  “Yet, in their reckless attempt to dismantle the core functions of the federal government, the Trump Administration is purging the dedicated public servants working tirelessly to eliminate the approximately 40,000 deaths and 5 million injuries suffered in traffic crashes every year.  Ultimately, the American people will feel the effects of this unconscionable action through more unnecessary crashes.  That means more death, more injuries, more broken families, and more shattered communities.”

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About the National Consumers League (NCL)

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

NCL blasts NHTSA’s delay and reconsideration of automatic emergency braking standard

Biden-era standard was projected to save hundreds of lives and prevent thousands of injuries each year

Media Contact: Lisa McDonald, Vice President of Communications, (202)- 207-2829

Washington, DC – Today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) delayed the implementation of a Biden-era rule that would require all passenger cars and light trucks to be equipped with automatic emergency brakes (AEB), which are automobile safety systems that automatically detect when a frontal collision with a vehicle or pedestrian is imminent and automatically applies the brakes to prevent or mitigate impact. The final rule was projected to save at least 362 lives and mitigate 24,321 injuries each year. Manufacturers would have to come into compliance with the rule by 2029.

“Mistakes should not cost lives, and with modern automobile safety technologies, they no longer have to,” said Daniel Greene, Senior Director, Consumer Protection & Product Safety Policy. “The Biden Administration took bold action to address the automobile safety crisis by requiring automatic emergency brakes to be standard safety features, not luxury items, on all new cars and light trucks. The Biden-era rule balanced the need to support safety innovation and compliance while addressing unacceptable carnage on our nation’s roads. Delaying or weakening these standards simply makes our streets more dangerous.”

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About the National Consumers League (NCL)

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit nclnet.org.

Saving kids’ lives through safer vehicles

Virtually every safety feature in automobiles, even those we take for granted, like seat belts and airbags, became standard equipment only after overcoming intense resistance. The technologies that have made cars much safer for both passengers and pedestrians have come about because of the commitment, determination, and resourcefulness of those who refuse to surrender in the fight for positive change.

That’s why I am so grateful for the partnership of Sally Greenberg and the National Consumers League (NCL). The work they have done and continue to do is saving countless lives.

In the 1980s, healthcare professionals were publishing papers on the number of people, predominantly small children, who were being killed or injured by cars backing out of driveways or parking spots. A 1993 report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) found that as many as 200 pedestrians, mostly children, were being killed each year by backing out collisions. At least 50 children every week were being backed over by vehicles.

My organization, Kids and Car Safety, compiled data on the problem and concluded that the only solution would be to mandate a rear visibility standard—cameras that would allow the driver to see what was behind the car, particularly a small child who could not be seen through the rearview mirror or rear window. The regulators were not acting, so we began working with Congress on legislation to require a rear visibility standard allowing drivers to see behind them when backing up. After all, you cannot avoid hitting something or someone you cannot see.

That’s when I teamed up with Sally Greenberg, then with Consumers Union. We began a battle that would take years but was so very necessary to prevent more families from suffering avoidable tragedies. We matched our research and our firsthand witness testimonies against the arguments that rear backup cameras would add too much to the cost of cars and that drivers wouldn’t use them. We argued that they shouldn’t only be offered as an optional feature in luxury cars.

Sally and Consumers Union, along with Kids and Car Safety and NCL, tirelessly insisted that safety could not be offered only to those who could afford it.

Finally, in 2014, a new rule was issued and took effect in 2018, mandating that all vehicles sold or leased in the United States, no matter where they were manufactured, be equipped with a rear backup camera. Today, they are thought to be as essential as seat belts, airbags, side impact protection, and electronic stability control—features that no vehicle should ever be without. And it happened because of advocates like Sally Greenberg and others who simply wouldn’t back down to the powerful, well-financed opposition.

There is more to be done to make cars safer for drivers and their families. On average, about 40 children die annually in hot cars. Often, these are infants and toddlers in rear- facing car seats, and the driver, looking in the rearview mirror, can’t tell if the seat is occupied or not.

We’re pleased to have NCL’s powerful voice engaged in yet another effort to use effective technologies to save lives. Occupant detection systems can distinguish between living beings and inanimate objects in the vehicle and can alert the driver that a child is unattended in the vehicle. This system will save lives, as NCL has compellingly pointed out. There is resistance to making occupant detection systems a mandatory feature in new cars. There always is. Yet, we were successful in adding a lifesaving traffic safety provision designed to prevent hot car fatalities, in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).

Kids and Car Safety and NCL have a solid track record of collaborating on these issues. When lives, health, and safety are at stake, I wouldn’t bet against us.

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Janette Fennell is the Founder and President of Kids and Car Safety, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing injury and death to children and animals in and around motor vehicles.

Guest blog: Kids and car safety

By Sydney Greenberger, NCL Summer Intern

On June 20, the first day of Summer 2024, 1,086 baby onesies were placed in a display across from the U.S. Department of Transportation headquarters in Washington, DC, representing the number of young lives lost to hot cars since 1990 in the United States. Kids and Car Safety predicts that over 7,500 more children have survived being left in hot cars, with various injuries. Already in 2024, three young children have lost their lives; the situation is exacerbated because the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has failed to issue a regulation requiring technology to be placed in new cars to stop hot car deaths despite a mandate from Congress to do so.

In 2022, Congress directed the NHSTA to issue a federal safety standard requiring new vehicles to be equipped with technology to prevent hot car deaths by November 2023. The NHTSA has delayed action until November 2024. The technology is there, and it isn’t expensive, but the NHTSA has priorities other than protecting the lives of innocent children and companion animals at risk of being forgotten in hot cars this summer.

A common misconception among parents in the U.S. is ‘this would never happen to my family; how could you ever leave your child in a car?’ However, history proves that these tragedies can happen to anyone. More than half of these accidents occur because a parent unknowingly left their child in their vehicle. It happens to parents who are absent-minded. But it also happens to the most attentive parents. Parents who are well-educated and well-off. Over the past decade, it has happened to a dentist, a social worker, a police officer, a nurse, an assistant principal, a pediatrician, and many more. Preventable hot car tragedies can happen to anyone.

On average, 38 American children die yearly from these tragedies. 88% of these victims are under three years of age. 43% of children who were unknowingly left in cars were supposed to be dropped off at their daycare. Rear-facing car seats look the same to parents whether there is a child in them or not, and if a child is asleep, it can be easy to forget they are there.

Once a child has been left in a hot vehicle, saving them from these preventable tragedies is a race against the clock. A child’s body temperature rises 3-5 times faster than an adult’s. Cracking the windows and parking in the shade do little to slow the heating process or decrease the maximum temperatures in a vehicle, and temperatures in cars rise fastest within the first 10 minutes of being parked. Hot car deaths have occurred on sunny days with temperatures as low as 60 degrees. Heatstroke starts when the body reaches a core temperature of 104 degrees, and death can occur at just 107 degrees. By the time parents realize what has happened, it is almost always too late.

Technology could have prevented most of these accidents from occurring. Most car manufacturers support rear-seat reminder systems, which are audio and visual systems that remind drivers to check the backseat after shutting off the engine and exiting the vehicle. The hot car provision passed by Congress calls for these audio and visual reminders, but advocates believe that occupant detection systems are needed to prevent hot car deaths and injuries. Occupant detection systems use motion, radar, lidar, and carbon dioxide to detect a living being inside a vehicle. These systems can distinguish between living things and inanimate objects in the back seat. The system cannot be overridden or disabled, and minimizes false alarms.

Rather than require occupant detection and alert technology that costs less than $20 per vehicle, the NHTSA has decided that a “Stop. Look. Lock.” campaign is more effective than inexpensive life-saving technology.

Until the NHTSA passes these required regulations to ensure child safety in hot cars this summer, it’s up to parents to ensure the safety of their children and pets. If you see a child left unattended in a vehicle, immediately call 911. Teach children that vehicles are not a play area, and store car keys out of reach. Have a plan that your childcare provider will call you if your child fails to show up for school. Create a “look before leaving” routine whenever you get out of the car. Many parents leave their briefcase or ID badge in the back seat, so they must check before going into the office. Others always keep a large stuffed animal in the car seat. If their child is in the car, the stuffed animal moves to the front seat, reminding parents that the child is in the back.

The most effective way to prevent hot car deaths of children and pets is through the life-saving technology that the NHTSA has failed to regulate and require. The NHTSA has left it solely to parents to ensure child and animal car safety. We should all be calling our members of Congress and urging government officials to prioritize and regulate the safety of children and pets.

Sources

Safety recommendations from noheatstroke.org

Kids and Car Safety

Kids and Car Safety Occupant Detection vs. End of Trip Reminder

From the NHTSA

32304B. Child Safety

Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety

Press Release

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