The NHTSA’s Evaluation of Automobile Safety Systems: Active or Passive

Since the first Ford Model T rolled off the assembly line, the regulation of automobile safety systems (“safety systems”) has changed drastically. While the regulation of safety systems was nonexistent at the birth of the Model T, the practice is abundant today. Modern automobile safety regulation saw its beginning in the late 1960s with the advent of seat belt laws, vehicle crashworthiness tests, and more recently the regulation of air bags. As a result, the United States has developed some of the world’s most stringent automobile safety standards. Despite stringent application of the safety standards, 2.9 million people were injured and 42,643 died as a result of 6.3 million reported traffic crashes in 2003. While not all of these crashes can be attributed to the lack of regulatory consideration of a specific feature, a number of crashes resulting from loss of vehicle control could have been prevented had the vehicles been equipped with Electronic Stability Control (“ESC”), a type of Active safety system available today. In 2004, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety determined that “[i]f all vehicles on U.S. roads had ESC, we might avoid as many