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Friday, October 03, 2008

Roof Strength Rule Delayed Again

The Bush administration needs more time to complete work on a new standard that would require stronger roofs in cars in order to improve passenger safety during rollover crashes. From The Detroit News:

[Transportation Secretary Mary] Peters told the Senate Commerce Committee she would not be able to complete the rewrite by today -- as she had said she would in a June 30 letter -- citing the need to do additional "regulatory analysis." The department will need until Dec. 15 to finish the revision, she said.

The DOT agency responsible for the rule — the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) — faced a statutory deadline of July 1 to complete the rule, but was permitted to request from Congress an extension. The agency did so, and Congress gave it until October 1. Now, NHTSA needs another extension.

Let's hope this rule is worth the wait. In 2005, DOT proposed a rule that would tighten the existing standard for roof strength which has not been updated since it was first written in 1971. But the proposal is weaker than auto safety advocates and Congress had hoped.

One of the major points of contention is preemption of state common law, which NHTSA has been pushing for. In the original notice, NHTSA claimed its final rule would prohibit states from enacting positive law — that is, laws passed by state legislatures and regulations developed by state agencies — different from the federal standard. NHTSA also claimed the rule would "preempt all conflicting State common law requirements, including rules of tort law," thereby eliminating a consumer's right to sue an automaker if the consumer is injured in a rollover crash.

NHTSA's decision to preempt state positive law and tort law through its regulation is in plain violation of the major federal law the agency enforces, the Motor Vehicle Safety Act. (Click here for details.)

The crux of the roof crush standard is the strength-to-weight ratio. Currently, a vehicle's roof must be able to withstand pressure of at least 1.5 times the vehicle's weight. The proposed standard would strengthen the ratio to 2.5. DOT estimates the rule change would result in 13 to 44 fewer rollover fatalities every year, but critics say it should make significantly more progress than that. In 2007, more than 10,000 people died in rollover crashes.

Considering the delays, NHTSA should make sure it gets the final rule right. During a June Senate hearing, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said NHTSA should give higher priority to eliminating the rule's flaws than to meeting the deadline" "If we have a little increase in roof strength that doesn't result in a major decrease in fatalities and injuries, we've done nothing."