Not long after undergoing scrutiny over its part of the February 2014 General Motors ignition switch recall, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration once again is under the gun, this time in its handling of the Takata airbag crisis.
Automotive News reports that the agency’s mostly hands-off approach, allowing automakers to use field actions to recall vehicles in a handful of states and territories where the possibility for catastrophic failure is greatest, is following the same track as the one that ultimately led GM to recall 2.6 million vehicles made in the early to mid-2000s, though on a greater scale.
Additionally, the NHTSA hasn’t ordered Takata itself to recall its defective airbags, mainly as it waits for more data to confirm the airbags are likely to act more like Claymores than safety devices under high humidity. In fact, the two parties entered into an agreement in June where affected automakers would conduct said field actions in only areas where those conditions are most prevalent — such as Florida and Puerto Rico, where six reports of failure were recorded. The airbags collected would then be tested, with the results sent to investigators.
As the recall widens its net further, the NHTSA is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Transportation, whose secretary, Anthony Foxx, received a letter from Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Ed Markley of Massachusetts — both heavy critics of the NHTSA’s handling of the GM recall — urging Foxx to order the agency to be more assertive:
NHTSA should immediately issue a nationwide safety recall on all the affected cars, regardless of where the car is registered. We have become increasingly troubled and alarmed by the confusing and conflicting advice being issued by NHTSA and the glacial pace of the agency’s response to this public safety threat.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, still investigating the GM recall, is now ordering an investigation into the Takata recall.