So How Did Washington Let The NHTSA Become The Lapdog Of The Automakers?

Calling NHTSA a "lapdog, not a watchdog," Joan Claybrook, former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said the agency must adopt "tougher standards" for safety officials who go to work for the auto industry. Claybrook testified today at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection examining NHTSA operations.

Claybrook, who served as NHTSA administrator during the Carter Administration, said she has found 40 cases of former NHTSA and Department of Transportation officials who went to work for the auto industry, including Sue Bailey, a former NHTSA administrator who went to work for Ford Motor Co., and Rodney Slater, a former Secretary of Transportation, who was recently asked by Toyota to head up a special quality advisory board. Claybrook included information on the cases in her prepared testimony today.





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Joe_Limon - 3/12/2010 11:23:35 AM

0 Boost

lol, hiring NHTSA memebers is a very valuable thing for Automotive companies to do, it allows them to follow the rules better. How on earth does this make the NHTSA the automakers "bitch"?

Agent009 - 3/12/2010 12:27:52 PM

+3 Boost

Pretty simple Joe. Since they have been on the inside they know how skirt the system and incite preferential treatment as well. As we are finding out that probably isn't a good thing.

Joe_Limon - 3/12/2010 12:47:10 PM

+2 Boost

If they know how to skirt the system, why didn't they fix these problems when they were part of the NHTSA? The only time that what you said really works is if the system is too big to change... but the NHTSA is always changing and updating...

Agent009 - 3/12/2010 1:03:54 PM

+3 Boost

You have a good question. However if you worked for an agency and discovered gold at the rainbow. Wouldn't you want to fill your pockets? Maybe not, but a lot did.

91z4me summed it up below. The federal government is a springboard into big bucks in the private sector for many. But should it be?

Joe_Limon - 3/12/2010 2:05:21 PM

0 Boost

Do we have any examples of loop holes that have been used?

bfghemicuda - 3/12/2010 11:28:59 PM

-1 Boost

Badgewhore,,Obama is the durtiest one in the bunch,, well maybe not he has a lot of competition with pelosi and reid. This whole administration is a bunch of slimeball bafoons. No response necessary.

91z4me - 3/12/2010 12:35:20 PM

+3 Boost

In case anyone is wondering the same thing happens between the FDA and pharmaceutical companies, just on a larger scale.

LauderdaleDriver - 3/19/2010 4:52:00 PM

+1 Boost

This was the philosophy of the last administration. They sincerely believed that all business people were ethical, and would be good boys and girls, disciplined only by "the market."

"Tooth fairy capitalism," brought to you by Alan Greenspan.