October 16, 2003

NHTSA accused of putting political correctedness before safety

Washington, D.C., — A group critical of of the NHTSA's fuel economy program (CAFE) has accused the NHTSA of minimizing the danger of small cars in collisions. A study released on Tuesday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration indicates that larger cars, minivans and SUVs are safer than smaller cars in collisions.

"NHTSA should be ashamed of once again ducking the CAFE/safety issue in order to continue its attacks on SUVs. As for rollovers, the far more important issue is overall safety - on that basis, the agency ought to be singling out minicars for concern. That, however, would require putting safety before political correctness - something this agency seems to be incapable of doing," said Sam Kazman, general counsel and fuel economy standards expert for CEI, a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.

CEI has been critical of the federal government's corporate average fuel economy program, known as CAFE, for almost two decades. In 1992, CEI won a federal appeals court ruling that NHTSA had illegally ignored the lethal effects of the program.

In 2001, a National Academy of Sciences panel concluded that CAFE contributes to between 1,300 to 2,600 traffic deaths per year, by restricting the production of large cars. NHTSA's newest study, however, finds that the effect of this downsizing on safety is "substantially larger" than previously thought.

The NHTSA study is available on CEI's website at www.cei.org. CAFE-related information is also available in the "CAFE Cafe" on CEI's website.

More News....