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Court Upholds Public Access to Crash Data

Taxpayer-owned tire safety data has been hidden from the public

July 23, 2008

• Court Upholds Public Access to Crash Data • Company Sues Feds For Release Of Safety Data • Feds Asked to Reverse Auto Safety "Secrets" Rule • NHTSA's Dirty Little Secrets • Consumer Group Sues For Release of Recall Data --- • Auto Safety News

The public has a right to see government information about vehicle crashes that result in death, injury or property damage. That's the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The ruling comes in a long-running dispute between consumer groups and tire and automobile manufacturers, who collect the data and submit it to the government.

The decision in the case of Public Citizen v. Peters vindicated Public Citizen's efforts to promote public disclosure of the data and rejected the position of the Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA) that it is exempt from federal Freedom of Information Act requirements.

Since 2003, manufacturers have been required to submit the information, referred to as "early warning data," under the Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act, but the U.S. Department of Transportation has been keeping the information secret because the rubber manufacturers appealed a lower court ruling that FOIA applied to the data.

The TREAD Act was passed in October 2000 in response to Ford Explorer-Firestone tire-related rollover deaths in the U.S. 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 U.S.

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."

The appeals court ruling "should put an end to the association's efforts and pave the way for the agency to begin releasing early warning data in response to FOIA requests," according to Public Citizen.

The court of appeals based its ruling on what it called the "plain language of the TREAD Act," which "means what it says" -- and it doesn't say that early warning data is exempt from FOIA.

Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook hailed the court's decision, noting that "the TREAD Act was intended to prevent needless deaths and injuries, like those in the Ford/Firestone tire tragedy, by giving regulators and the public quick access to information manufacturers have about crashes involving their products. Public availability of information under FOIA is critical to achieving that goal."

In the court of appeals, the Transportation Department agreed with Public Citizen that the early warning data are not exempt from FOIA's requirements, but the existence of the case has had the practical effect of keeping the information from the public.

In light of the court of appeals' opinion, it is expected that DOT will now comply with FOIA's requirements and begin processing requests for, and releasing, early warning data to the public unless it fits within a specific FOIA exemption.

"The D.C. Circuit's opinion eliminates any shred of legal support for the RMA's attempts to keep early warning data under wraps," said Public Citizen attorney Scott Nelson, who argued the case. "Now that the court has confirmed that the TREAD Act means what it says, it is time for the government to follow the law and comply with its obligations under FOIA."

Between July 1994 and January 15, 2007, at least 420 persons have been killed in tire-related, Ford Explorer, Mercury Mountaineer, and Mazda Navajo crashes, including 396 deaths found in NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and 24 recent deaths found in news accounts. For more than a year, Whitfield has been seeking Ford's EWR death and injury data on Explorers to better analyze the rise in tire-related Explorer fatalities.

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