Reprinted from The Safety Record, Volume 8, Issue 1, March 2011 Last month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration closed an investigation into the problem of fuel spit-back affecting Jeep Wrangler vehicles from the 2007-2008 model years, concluding that no safety-related defect trend had been identified. Fuel spit-back occurs when a vehicle’s inlet check valve [...]

Reprinted from The Safety Record, Volume 7, Issue 3, November 2010 This summer, a British coroner made headlines when he determined that the death of a passenger in a rollover crash would have been averted if the vehicle’s tires hadn’t been 13 years old. Nazma Shaheen, a mother of two, died in May 2009, after [...]

Reprinted from The Safety Record, Volume 7, Issue 3, November 2010 WASHINGTON, D.C. – In an unusual move, Ford Motor Company announced that it would buy back some older model Windstars with failed rear axles. That leaves one Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) probe into corrosion complaints for the minivan closed and one to go.

Reprinted from The Safety Record, Volume 7, Issue 3, November 2010 WASHINGTON, D.C. – ABS brakes have been around since 1929; they were applied to automobiles in the early 1970s; today they are standard on many new vehicles and serve as the basis for electronic stability control systems. That they are effective is a matter [...]

Reprinted from The Safety Record, Volume 7, Issue 2, June 2010 The last two months have seen another Congressional hearing; details on Toyota’s fiscal and legal relationship with Exponent, the birth of a new government panel to look at Sudden Unintended Acceleration, the launch of a new Timeliness Query in a Toyota recall of defective [...]

Reprinted from The Safety Record, Volume 7, Issue 1, April 2010 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Eleven years after the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration establish performance standards for school bus occupant protection systems in all types of collisions, the NTSB removed it from the top-ten list of most wanted [...]

Reprinted from The Safety Record, Volume 7, Issue 1, April 2010 WASHINGTON, D.C. – After nearly seven years of complaints and quietly failed Toyota SUA investigations, the floodgates have opened. The last two months have brought more recalls, unprecedented press coverage, political and corporate theater, lawsuits, three new NHTSA investigations and a dribbling of old [...]

Reprinted from The Safety Record, Volume 6, Issue 6, December 2009 WASHINGTON, D.C. – After decades of successfully maintaining the status quo, motor coach manufacturers and operators are about to be regulated as part of a concerted approach to improve motorcoach safety.

Reprinted from The Safety Record, Volume 6, Issue 6, December 2009 WASHINGTON, D.C – On the eve of a rare non-compliance public hearing, Transportation Collaborative, Inc., a New York school bus company, agreed to complete by September, 15 recalls campaigns dating back to 2001 and to pay a $20,000 fine.

Reprinted from The Safety Record, Volume 6, Issue 6, December 2009 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Fair. A listener. Safety conscious. The safety community was near unanimous in its reaction to the confirmation of David L. Strickland as NHTSA’s new administrator.