The Evolution of Automobile Safety Regulations: Driving Forces and Legal Battles, Slides of Administrative Law

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The Evolution of Policy as Politics Change

What Drives Laws?

 First, there is popular concern  Individual stories  Then interest groups  FDA and the Jungle  MADD  Insurance industry - what is their interest?  Starting in the 1980s, plaintiffs attorneys  Then pressure on elected officials  Sometimes this is compressed as the legislature reacts to a crisis  Very seldom does the legislature pass a law just because it is a good thing

Nader and Public Interest:

First Chevrolet, then Al Gore

 Unsafe at any Speed - 1965

The Seat Belt Saga II

 Congress passes the Traffic and Motor Vehicle

Safety Act

 1967 - regulation requiring seatbelts

 1972 - realized that people were not wearing the

seatbelts

 Regulation requiring automatic seatbelts or

airbags by 1975

The Seat Belt Saga IV

 DOT under Ford withdrew the regs

 DOT under Carter (a few months later) passed

new passive restraint regs for 1982 and Congress

did not veto them

 1979 - Regs were affirmed in Pacific Legal

Foundation v. DOT

The Seat Belt Saga V

 1981 - DOT under Reagan withdrew the regs

because the car companies were going to use

automatic seatbelts that could be disconnected.

 1983 - Motor Vehicles Manufacturers Assoc. v

State Farm hit the United States Supreme Court

Procedure

 How many rule revisions had been done before the one in this case?

 Why did DOT decide that it could not show that automatic seatbelts would improve safety?  What was it about the design that limited their effectiveness?

 How did the agency use this to decide that the cost of the regulations was not justified?

 What is the agency's argument that rescinding a rule is like refusing to make a rule?

The Court's Ruling

 Why did the court reject the argument that since there is

little review of refusal to make a rule, that they should be little review when the agency rescinds the a rule?

 What did the court find that the agency ignored in this

analysis?

 What did the court want to see in the record for the rule

making?

 How is this different from saying that agencies are bound

by precedent when making rules?

The Seat Belt Saga VI

 1984 - DOT (Libby Dole) promulgated a reg requiring automatic seatbelts or airbags in all cars after 1989, unless  2/3 of the population were covered by state seatbelt laws, and  the laws met certain criteria

 What did some states do?

 $5 penalty  No stop  No meaningful seatbelt defense

 Most State laws did not meet the criteria

The Seat Belt Saga VII

 Late 1980s safety becomes a selling point and the

market changes.

 1997 - most newer cars had airbags

 1998 - airbags kill grannies and little kids!

 Nothing new - known at the time

 Save many more

 1999 - You can get your airbag disconnected

 Products liability issues?

Environment and Economic Security

 Gasoline mileage

 Lighter cars  Smaller cars

 What is the trade off for safety?

 Small, safe = expensive  Big trucks roll because they are diven by morons

 Can the DOT admit this?

 How do they cover it up?

 Carbon emissions