Most experts believe, though, that the Supreme Court's decision chastising the NHTSB was instrumental in its increased diligence and oversight regarding airbag implementation and safety measures.
Additionally, the NHTSA has a clear mandate, despite the allusion to evidence in the Court case that there may have been undue pressure placed upon the organization due to auto manufacture's complaints about rising costs for safety devices in a down economy (the late 1970s and early 1980s). However, according to their own site:
NHTSA was established by the Highway Safety Act of 1970 to carry out safety programs previously administered by the National Highway Safety Bureau. Specifically, the agency directs the highway safety and consumer programs established by the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, the Highway Safety Act of 1966, the 1972 Motor Vehicle Information and Cost Savings Act, and succeeding amendments to these laws (nhtsa.dot.gov).
The NHTSA should not be part of a political program or agenda, and its one mandate is to protect the safety of Americans through research, policing, and enforcement of safety regulations on all automobiles and trucks. The Court acted properly, if not lightly, in simply warning the NHTSA about increased diligence. Although it is likely that State Farm acted on more than simple concern...
each non-airbag claim was thousands of dollars more in damage and potential injury and/or loss of life), their point was well taken -- why would an agency charged with public safety authorize any regulation that has the potential to harm consumers? Further, by its very nature, standards from the NHTSA should be far higher and more diligent than any other entity since they work, essentially, for the American people.
REFERENCES
Evans, L. Traffic Safety. Science Serving Society, 2004.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety
Act of 1966. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985.
Pratt, L. "Work Related Roadway Crashes." National Institute for Occupational Safety.
2003, CDC. Cited in:
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2003-119/
Sivak, M. "Is the U.S. On the Path to the Lowest Motor Vehicle Fatalities in Decades?"
University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. UMTRI-2008-39.
(July 2008). Cited in:
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60424/1/100969.pdf
U.S. Supreme Court. (1983). "Motor Veh. Mfrs. Ass'n v. State Farm Ins." 463 U.S.
29. Cited in:
http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/463/29/case.php
