National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration News

Auto Safety Regulators To Watch Unrecalled Takata Inflators After One Blows Apart, Injuring a Driver in Chicago

DETROIT (AP) – U.S. auto safety regulators said Monday they are monitoring data from a group of mostly unrecalled Takata air bag inflators after one of them exploded in a BMW and hurled metal fragments that seriously injured a driver …

Safety Regulator Questions Tesla on No Recall With Autopilot Update

U.S. safety investigators want to know why Tesla didn’t file recall documents when it updated Autopilot software to better identify parked emergency vehicles, escalating a simmering clash between the automaker and regulators. In a letter to Tesla, the National Highway …

U.S. Announces Safety Investigation of Steering Loss in 1.1M Honda Accords

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Monday it was opening a formal safety probe into more than 1.1 million Honda Accord vehicles over sudden loss of steering control reports. The agency said the engineering analysis covers 2013 through …

Safety Agency Dismisses Claims of Faulty Acceleration Against Tesla

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it would not grant a petition seeking a formal review of 662,000 Tesla vehicles for claims of sudden unintended acceleration (SUA). The U.S. auto safety regulator said its review of the December …

U.S. Safety Agency Expands Probe Into 159,000 Teslas Over Touchscreen Failures

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Monday it was expanding a probe into nearly 159,000 Tesla Model S and Model X vehicles, upgrading it to an engineering analysis, a step required before it can seek to …

Safety Agency Pulls Obama Proposal to Require Event Data Recorders in Cars, Trucks

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Tuesday it is withdrawing a 2012 Obama administration proposal to require event data recorders in all new cars and trucks because it says automakers have voluntarily installed the devices in nearly …

Federal Safety Agency Shuts Down Self-Driving School Bus Test

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Monday said it had ordered Transdev North America to immediately stop transporting school children in Florida in a driverless shuttle, as the testing could be putting them at “inappropriate” risk. Transdev’s use of …

Safety Agency Faulted for Delayed Action on Auto, Airbag Recalls

A government audit released on Wednesday faulted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s oversight of auto safety recalls and said its “delayed action” may have delayed the expansion of a record-setting callback of millions of vehicles for Takata air bag …

U.S. Autonomous Vehicle Policy Attempts to Straddle Lanes of Safety and Innovation

The new U.S. policy on self-driving cars received a mixed reaction from highway-safety advocates who acknowledged the life-saving potential though warned of a world of “human guinea pigs.” The Transportation Department’s new guidelines give carmakers and states “the green light …

Fatal Auto Pedestrian Accidents on the Rise in Texas

The number of fatal auto pedestrian accidents in Texas has risen 36 percent since the Texas Department of Transportation began keeping the records in 2010, recently released National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics show. Overall traffic fatalities in Texas rose …