When the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill handed in late 2021, it received numerous consideration for funding electrical automobile charging, high-speed rail, bridge upkeep and numerous different fundamental infrastructure wants. What didn’t get a lot consideration was a provision requiring the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to replace seat power necessities in automobiles. NHTSA had two years to finish that activity, and, as CBS News studies, it merely didn’t do it.
While new automobiles are actually safer than they had been prior to now, the present regulation dictating how securely your seat must be bolted to the ground of your automotive dates again to 1967. And sadly, a 2015 CBS News investigation discovered that seats have a nasty behavior of breaking free in a rear-end collision. Those seats then fly backward, placing rear passengers in danger. At least 50 kids reportedly die yearly because of this difficulty.
As you possibly can think about, most of the lawmakers who handed the invoice should not comfortable that NHTSA ignored the requirement to replace the seat power requirement.
“I’m going to turn up the heat on NHTSA,” Senator Ed Markey advised CBS News. “It shouldn’t be hard. This is actually very simple. We’re not trying to put somebody on a mission to Mars. We’re just trying to make sure kids in the back seat are protected.”
Senator Richard Blumenthal agreed, telling CBS News, “Frankly, I’m going to the president of the United States. And I’m going to say you don’t want this agency to be delaying and dallying when kids’ lives are at stake.”
Lawmakers aren’t the one ones upset that NHTSA by no means received round to doing what it was legally required to do. National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy advised CBS News, “It shouldn’t require an act of Congress to get them to act on regulation. We shouldn’t have to wait for people to die to take action. There are recommendations on recommendations upon recommendations that the NTSB has issued over and over and over again to NHTSA and others. There hasn’t been action. That tells me you’re not serious about safety. So get serious.”
You would suppose that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg can be equally upset, however apparently, he’s completely cool with NHTSA not doing what it’s legally required to do, even after two years.
“When it comes to safety, the one thing that matters more than doing something in time for a congressional deadline is doing it right,” he advised CBS News. “NHTSA has to make tough choices every day, because literally everything they do involves life safety. They have limited resources to deal with dozens of overlapping requirements and mandates.”
To be clear, although, this doesn’t imply that seats haven’t gotten any stronger since 1967. Automakers have been exceeding the authorized necessities for years, and Kia, for instance, up to date the Carnival when IIHS testing confirmed that its second-row seats might come free in a crash.
Source: jalopnik.com