Lobby group demands NHTSA's EWR data under US Freedom of Information act

Washington DC - A US company has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in federal District Court to obtain data about deaths and injuries held by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The company - Quality Control Systems Corp. - is seeking access to the Early Warning Reports collected under the Transportation Recall Enhancement Accountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act.

The TREAD Act was passed in October 2000 in response to Ford Explorer- Firestone tyre-related rollover deaths in the US and Ford's overseas recalls. TREAD amended federal transportation law to require vehicle and equipment manufacturers to report safety recalls or campaigns on vehicles and components in a foreign country if they also sold substantially similar products in the US It also mandated NHTSA to create regulations governing quarterly Early Warning Reports - information on property damage and warranty claims, consumer, dealer and field reports, production numbers and deaths and injuries collected by manufacturers - with the intent of using the data to spot defect trends.

When President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law, he directed NHTSA "to implement the information disclosure requirements of the [TREAD] Act in a manner that assures maximum public availability of information." According to QCS, "after six years of crafting regulations, and after three years worth of data, the public has consistently been denied access to this important safety information."

Since 2000, safety and consumer advocates and manufacturers have fought over what -- if any -- of the information collected under the TREAD Act is public. The safety community has pushed for maximum accessibility. R.A. Whitfield, the company's director, said that the public needs access to the Early Warning Reports collected under the TREAD Act to better understand why so many deaths and injuries related to tire failures in the Ford Explorer have continued long after the well-known tyre recalls that affected the vehicle.

The Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA) has insisted that the TREAD Act specifically exempted EWR data from public view under Exemption 3 of the Freedom of Information Act. (Exemption 3 states that information is not public under FOIA if Congress specifically passes a law preventing its release.)

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Press release from Safety Research & Strategies, Inc.

Website of Safety Research & Strategies, Inc.

NHTSA denies research request for data on crashes AP via CentreDaily (US)