The White House said on Monday that President Joe Biden plans to nominate the acting head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to serve in the top job. Ann Carlson, the agency's chief counsel, was named acting head of NHTSA in September. She has overseen safety probes into Tesla and efforts to shrink traffic deaths and significantly boost vehicle fuel economy requirements.
For much of the past six years, NHTSA has been without a Senate-confirmed administrator. U.S. traffic deaths have risen sharply since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Road deaths jumped 10.5% in 2021 to 42,915, the highest number killed on American roads in a single year since 2005.
In January, Carlson said the agency was studying the impact of vehicle size on roadway safety and was "very concerned" about the "degree to which heavier vehicles contribute to greater fatality rates."
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