The chairman gave a presentation about the rulemaking and enforcement process in view of FMVSSs

NHTSA has authority over two large areas – a behavioral part and vehicle safety part. Senior associate administer of the Vehicle safety part is Dan Smith. He is in charge of four offices:

  • rulemaking office,
  • research office,
  • data office,
  • Enforcement office.

Each office is headed by an associate administer. This presentation focuses on the proceeding of the enforcement office headed by Nancy Lewis. There are three sub offices:

  • office of defects and investigation covering any safety related problem in the field (responsible for most of the vehicle recalls)
  • Office for vehicle safety and compliance OVSC (market surveillance to check conformity with FMVSSs). Also covers CAFÉ Fuel Economy Enforcement program
  • Office for odometer fraud department relying on data delivered by EPA.

All FMVSS have to meet basic criteria to be established. These basic standards are:

  • there must be the proof that there is a safety need,
  • it must be practicable, i.e. it must be technically feasible,
  • it must be objective and measureable, meaning that there must rules for proceeding allowing several bodies independently to carry out a verification test and come to the same result.
  • Standards are typically performance based, and
  • it must be appropriate for each vehicle type.

Methods of enforcement:
• Recalls
Any product brought to the market must comply with all FMVSS standards. An OEM must on own initiative do a recall (notify the owner and provide remedy for the entire population of the concerned vehicles if it learns about safety defects or non- compliance or if NHTSA decide to do so. This duty is not limited to non-compliance with FMVSS standards but is also applicable in the case where an OEM detects a safety defect of any other nature.

•Civil penalties
$6.000 per violation limited to $25.000.000 for related series of violations.

•Criminal penalties

Defects and investigation office screens many sources of information of possibly defects to identify likely candidate for investigation, such as customer complaints, monitoring of OEM bulletins and advisory for the dealership, early warning reports – self reporting of the manufacturers about possible concerns, formal petitions to the administrator.

Presentation on US Rulemaking process (T. Healey/NHTSA)

In the US both formal and informal rulemaking processes exist. In publishing safety standards, NHTSA usually applies informal rulemaking. Formal is traditionally reserved for licensing. Informal rulemaking usually consist on the publication of an NPRM and the subsequent receipt of comments. The decision for the final rule has to be based on the administrative records, i.e. all documents that are used for the final rule must be publicly available so that everybody can follow the process. The reason is fairness for all stakeholders. Not placing everything in a docket may result in the rejection of law. A record of the ongoing of the QRTV meetings will also be published. All questions put and comments made will be recorded and made available for public follow up.