Eberhardt’s Tire & Automotive
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A bill recently introduced in the U.S. Senate by John D. Rockefeller (D-WV) and Mark Pryor, (D-AR) touches on several issues relevant to the collision and automotive repair industry, according to the Automotive Service Association.
The bill, titled Motor Vehicle and Highway Safety Improvement Act of 2011, includes provisions for broadening the authority of the secretary of transportation to:
• Conduct motor vehicle safety research, development, and testing programs and activities, including new and emerging technologies that impact or may impact motor vehicle safety
• Collect and analyze all types of motor vehicle and highway safety data and related information to determine the relationship between motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment performance characteristics.
In addition, the legislation requires that the U.S. Department of Transportation conduct a study of crash data collection and report, after one year, on the quality of data collected through the National Automotive Sampling System, including the Special Crash Investigations Program. NHTSA would then conduct a comprehensive review of the data elements collected from each crash to determine if additional data should be collected.
The bill also includes efforts to further explore green methods, including a council to research the inclusion of emerging lightweight plastic and composite technologies in motor vehicles to increase fuel efficiency, lower emissions, meet fuel economy standards and enhance passenger motor vehicle safety, ASA said.
Lastly, the bill requires that, beginning with model year 2015, new passenger motor vehicles sold in the U.S. be equipped with a vehicle event data recorder. The language includes that any data in an event data recorder, regardless of when the passenger motor vehicle in which it is installed was manufactured, is the property of the owner or lessee of the passenger motor vehicle in which the data recorder is installed. The bill also states that data recorded or transmitted by such a data recorder may not be retrieved by a person other than the owner/lessee of the vehicle unless authorized by the owner/lessee or a court as part of a legal proceeding, or if the information is retrieved for the purpose of determining the need for, or facilitating, emergency medical response in the event of a motor vehicle crash.
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