NHTSA Cuts Could Make Roads More Dangerous

According to reporting by Ian Duncan in The Washington Post, recent firings at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) include “an engineer who worked with crash test dummies, employees who work with states on safety grant funding, and a research psychologist focused on drunken driving and speeding.”

“In all, the agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, will lose between 70 and 80 people, split roughly evenly between firings of probationary employees and buyouts, according to three people, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.” The NHTSA employs roughly 800 people and is crucial to road safety efforts.

The firings include three out of the seven people tasked with overseeing autonomous vehicle safety. Whether or not the cuts were targeted, one former worker said they will amount to “less scrutiny of robotic vehicles.” According to one fired engineer, “The amount of people in the federal government who are able to understand this adequately is very small. Now it’s almost nonexistent.” 

The NHTSA has several open investigations into autonomous vehicle technology, including Tesla’s self-driving features, Ford’s driver assistance technology, and autonomous taxi services Waymo and Zoox.