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LaHood’s Legacy – NHTSA Isn’t Just Writing And Enforcing Safety Rules Any More

Outgoing Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood

US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood – whom I have criticized vehemently for his mismanagement of the Toyota unintended acceleration debacle – is leaving his post whenever congress approves his replacement.

LaHood’s legacy at NHTSA is debatable, but one of his hires has implemented a fundamental change in the way that the government regulates automakers. From Automotive News:

Strickland, who became NHTSA administrator in 2010 amid the Toyota sudden-acceleration crisis…reaffirmed the agency’s intent to scrutinize vehicle data continually for patterns that might point to risks that merit a recall.

“It really is based on the notion of unreasonable risk. And that is an evolving notion,” Strickland said. The agency, he added, is obligated to reassess a potential risk “if state of the art moves all the peers in one direction, and it appears that there is another part of the fleet that has not made those same moves or improvements.

That’s right – NHTSA isn’t going to just write and enforce regulations any longer. They’re also going after companies who don’t update their designs quickly enough if/when those designs are shown to be unsafe…even 20 years after the fact.