National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
NHTSA is housed in the USDOT headquarters at the Navy Yard (Washington, D.C.) in Washington, D.C. | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | December 31, 1970 |
| Preceding agency |
|
| Jurisdiction | U.S. motor vehicles[2] |
| Headquarters | Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Employees | 675 (FY 2023)[3] |
| Annual budget | $1.3 billion (FY 2025)[5] |
| Agency executive |
|
| Parent department | Department of Transportation (USDOT) |
| Website | nhtsa |
| Footnotes | |
| Leadership[6] | |
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA /ˈnɪtsə/ NITS-ə)[7] is an agency of the U.S. federal government, part of the Department of Transportation, focused on automobile safety regulations.
NHTSA is charged with writing and enforcing Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS), regulations for motor vehicle theft resistance, and fuel economy, as part of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) system. FMVSS 209 was the first standard to become effective on March 1, 1967. NHTSA licenses vehicle manufacturers and importers, allows or blocks the import of vehicles and safety-regulated vehicle parts, administers the vehicle identification number (VIN) system, develops the crash test dummies used in U.S. safety testing as well as the test protocols themselves, and provides vehicle insurance cost information. The agency has asserted preemptive regulatory authority over greenhouse gas emissions, but this has been disputed by state regulatory agencies such as the California Air Resources Board.
The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards are codified under Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Additional federal vehicle standards are contained elsewhere in the CFR. Another of NHTSA's activities is the collection of data about motor vehicle crashes, available in various data files maintained by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis, in particular the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), the Crash Investigation Sampling System (CISS, where technicians investigate a random sample of police crash reports), and others.[8]
Other aspects of U.S. traffic safety, including road design, traffic enforcement, and crash investigation are outside of NHTSA's jurisdiction.
- ^ "Who We Are and What We Do". National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Archived from the original on October 18, 2015. Retrieved November 1, 2015.
- ^ "National Highway Traffic Safety Administration". International Trade Data System. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015. Retrieved November 1, 2015.
- ^ "Budget Estimates, Fiscal Year 2025" (PDF). National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. United States Department of Transportation. p. 21. Retrieved February 10, 2025.
- ^ https://apnews.com/article/senate-nominations-trump-rules-change-confirmation-a84e49fb5f6e433bf6fc9e92d2bd968b
- ^ "FY2025 Budget Highlights". National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. United States Department of Transportation. March 11, 2024. Retrieved February 3, 2025.
- ^ "NHTSA Leadership". NHTSA. August 2021. Retrieved August 31, 2021.
- ^ Calmes, Jackie (April 5, 2014). "Minding the Minders of G.M." New York Times.
- ^ "Crash Investigation Sampling System". www.nhtsa.gov. NHTSA. Archived from the original on July 8, 2023. Retrieved July 8, 2023.