NHTSA head investigating Tesla raises alarm on rising US road deaths

US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg plans to produce the Department’s first-ever National Roadway Strategy to help decrease fatalities from motor vehicle crashes. 

“This is a crisis. More than 20,000 people died on U.S. roads in the first six months of 2021, leaving countless loved ones behind. We cannot and should not accept these fatalities as simply a part of everyday life in America. Today, we are announcing that we will produce the Department’s first-ever National Roadway Safety Strategy to identify action steps for everyone working to save lives on the road. No one will accomplish this alone. It will take all levels of government, industries, advocates, engineers, and communities across the country working together toward the day when family members no longer have to say goodbye to loved ones because of a traffic crash,” Buttigieg said. 

The National Roadway Safety Strategy will be released in January. It will be rooted in the Safe System Approach principles and identify significant actions the Department plans to ensure safer people, roads, and vehicles. Biden’s nomination for NHTSA head, Steven Cliff, oversees an NHTSA investigation on Tesla, specifically the one related to Autopilot. The investigation was prompted after Tesla released an Autopilot update to improve the driver-assist system’s ability to detect and respond to stationary emergency vehicles. The NHTSA believed Tesla should have issued a safety-related recall before releasing the update. 

Ironically, a few emergency first responders believed the NHTSA’s reaction to Tesla’s update was counterproductive. And the opinions of first responders may carry some weight in the matter of fatalities from car accidents as many emergency personnel dies on the job on a frighteningly frequent basis. 

For Cliff, though, the first step to decreasing deaths from car crashes would be to pass Biden’s infrastructure bill. He said the bill would increase the NHTSA’s budget by 50% and “will improve our understanding of where and how crashes happen by improving data quality and expanding electronic reporting to move from paper-based data collection systems to digital systems.”

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