do is maintain some scientific purity. you have to be a credible, honest broker. you are always looking for the facts and the data. sometimes, if people have a concern or believe in something to be true, they get very unhappy when we do not agree with it. frankly, the facts are not there yet. given the resources, we have to look at the biggest bang for the buck in protecting the public. investigators are like sherlock holmes. i have seen them kicking tires and asking people in the garage because they have heard something they think may be plausible. when they see a lot of complaints they do not suddenly run out and recall. they do it preliminary investigation. there is enough data for us to allocate resources and do a preliminary investigation. the contact car companies for more information. when there is enough concern, they raise it to an engineering analysis. they are clever in how they can

replicate some of the things that occur. with toyota, the fact that we are seeing the same sort of issues from other cars from other manufacturers makes you think it could be it is not a floor mat. it could be that there is something in the software or electromagnetic, as nasa is looking at. . . that is where you find if you disregard something that is not in the facts, you could be labeled that you are ignoring.

that is not the case. they like to go out and get the problem and solve it. >> we're taking your phone calls this evening about federal oversight. if you want to send this a tweet, go to twittered not, -- twtiter -- twitter.com. >> i just had two quick questions to ask you. did it affect the asian market like it affected the asian market? -- like it affected the u.s. market? is it the sub part parts coming from the asian market? it is not like american steel? >> i do not have the answer of how this has affected the market out of the united states.

i would imagine that what is happening is a reflection of what is happening around the world. maybe not with the degree of enthusiasm, but if it is a systemic problem, it will affect global sales. this is not a problem of replacement parts. with the question about parts, the vehicles are assembled from the parts of a lot of different suppliers. the oem's, the original equipment manufacturers look for suppliers that will give them the best deal. the ones that are the most compatible with the existing systems. a car really is an amalgamation of many different manufacturers, not just a single manufacturer. i am sure the manufacturers are looking closely at their

suppliers for the source of this. >> help me with your name. >> i am from michigan. i appreciate c-span, and i appreciate the candor of dr. martinez. my question has to do with the overreliance on centers anymore electronic components. what about the effectiveness of some of these components, and that drivers can manually override many of these problems when they occur. are you looking into those sources were the driver has some kind of fail-safe ability to control the car when electronics kind of go haywire? >> that is one of the things that has been raised dairy high on the radar screen. this is not like a computer or you could press ctrl, alt,

delete, you have to provide integrity in safety for the drivers, passengers, and the people around them. again, that is a good thing. the move about centers and putting them in has made a big difference. people always ask, what is the safest car? it used to be the one that hits you best. it is about the car being nibbled to adapt. -- being able to adapt. going forward, we're going to avoid the crash altogether, which is the biggest bang for the buck. historically, car companies have been built on mechanical engineering. the airbag sensor was a tube with a ball bearing in it. if that ball bearing rolled to the end of the tube, it closed a switch and was very unsophisticated.

it concerns people, size, and have the air bag go off at different levels. how you integrate all of that together and prevent any sort of adverse effect? the original manufacturer is working hard on that now. you get all of the performance in the but you preserve the bad outcome and it is able to perform in all kinds of situations. th>> the electronic systems has saved thousands of lives. the control systems were being deployed -- we reduced crashes

by 65% by introducing systems that keep vehicles on the road. when you leave the road, they are a form of injury. if you need to slam on the brakes and stop, the card text the rate and depth -- and the car detects the rat rate -- the rate and epth. -- and depth. it is a great question that the caller asks, and it is a philosophical question. are you smarter, faster, and more capable than centers and computers that will do that even if you can't?

>> can you hear me? >> ago ahead. >> your colleague has known me for 27 years. you know stephen, don't you? >> yes. >> he can verify to you that i am a very credible person. i happen to know the answer to the whole question. it is something that very few people in the world know. and i will give it to you, it will take about one minute. i would like to call you tomorrow and give you more. it will take maybe half an hour to explain the whole thing. i will give you the summary. >> is this related to auto safety? >> it is related to the toyota thing. i am asking you not to judge it or market. >> behalf to hurry up, harry. go, please.

>> i will give you the truth. listen, you remember that the toyota castle burned down in 1995? in 1992, d remember that? >> get your point, we have here from all different places. >> it will take 60 seconds, and if you cut me off, you will be doing a disservice to journalism. the castle burned down in 1992. the party put a nuclear weapon under osaka, japan in 1995 that killed 6000 people. that is why toyota is deliberately doing this. the government is deliberately doing this. >> think you very much for your call. >> i own two german cars, a ford

pickup, and i have had problems with several of those, too. i am concerned -- it is my understanding that one of the problems that we had, the woman that was on one of the congressional inquiries into up where the black box indicated she pressed on the accelerator and not a break. one of the other ones that i understand as far as the sticky accelerator, there is a manufacturer in michigan that is developing or producing some of these things for the area. -- for toyota. many of the manufacturers get their parts from all over the place. i real concern here is, why doesn't the news media broadcasts all of the information concerning -- or

even the safety board, broadcast all of the information as it relates to some of these situations? if you look on the internet, you can see where recalls have been for air bags, for all kinds of things. it almost seems to me like there may be a little bit of a political environment against toyota. i don't know if you could answer that or would like to, but i would appreciate something. >> it is hard to understand all of the motivations that have gone on with this entire thing. the severity of the issue is really what drove the agency to take a proactive role. secretary lahood been very forceful in his role. i have been handed to him. the agency have had -- has had very good leadership.

i seriously do not believe that they are going to be driven by the political wind. having said that, congress provides oversight for the executive branch. every congressman represents a district, and they have constituents that have very special interests. jobs, other things. when we look at the rhetoric surrounding this issue, and a lot of it is unscientific, a lot of it is driven by something other than the evidence i would agree, you have to take into account. i don't believe the agency will get distracted too much by that. i am sure that the investigators that are the boots on the ground will not be distracted by that. the media, however, does follow the story. the story is written other than those that are tasked to solve

the problem. >> there are a lot of stories every day, and in this case, there is a human face on it. the thing that attracts our controversy. we have to try to make sure to look beyond that and look at the data itself in the science. what you mentioned about the black box is of interest. i petitioned the agency to put in black boxes, and the doctor helped remove that forward. we're emergency physicians, we see patients. if you practice the way we investigate, people would slap us with malpractice. we don't want to guess, we want to know. instead of looking back for years and years, we look at it

permission to speed up and facilitate our ability to investigate. there will kids get marks, things like that. cars actually have computers and side that can tell you what is happening and with the reels -- wheels. those sort of things mean we don't guess when we can know. we can see that moving forward. you see a lot of these investigations become a little more definite as opposed to us trying to discuss what happened. >> what is the agency need to do that type of investigation? the budget for 2011 was $867 million. is that adequate to do what your saying? -- what you are saying? >> allot of it gets passed to the states because they have very active programs, drunk

driving programs, that kind of thing. what i have been concerned about has not arrived in nhtsa over time. they're probably a little bit behind. going back tenor 15 years ago, we ask for a lot of additional people. the idea was to balance the budget and there is such a thing as investment. we really need to focus on that. how do you look at the centers and how these things come together. there are attempts that have been pushed back a bit. as we pointed out, there were

recalls and other countries. we did not hear about it in our market. we have just gone through it very difficult time in the industry with indeed have a global reach, and we need to be able to hold all the people accountable. >> one of our viewers ask how a person can listen to to federal oversight. go to c-span.org. if you're interested in watching them -- n.y., your next. >> i think having doctors as the head of nhtsa, it is unfortunate that that is not occurring now. the problem is, we have almost

100,000 people and 50 million serious injuries around the world. having medical doctors as the head is very important. [inaudible] i think that the problem here really is a matter of information. i know that dr. martinez really worked on passage of something in 2006 requiring -- is trying to get a mandate to have the information. the problem is, the toyota thing in some of these others, [inaudible] the auto industry has been secretive in getting the code out where people can get the information.

>> dr. martinez? >> it is true. we first learned about the chip on board with general motors. a gentleman in the crash had almost pulled out the seat belt. we thought there was a defect. we calculated about $14,000, about 26 miles an hour, a fairly serious crash. but things should not fail. it turns out the crash was about 56 miles an hour. we paid $14,000 to be 200% wrong. they said they have to put this information in. anybody can download the information and look at what happened in the car crash. some companies have said this is proprietary information.

was there the brake on? the speed, all of that. i am not sure the information even exist after the crash because there have been concerns about the integrity of the box. if you look at the emergency medical service providers, they say they can do a better job at determining whether someone is injured or not. the national academy of sciences, and just a few weeks ago put out some basic standards that should be there to protect privacy in protect the integrity information and the ability to retrieve it. we are on the verge of these things, but it is taken a while like the viewer said. what is the price we're paying? why guess when we can know? >> the caller mentioned you both have medical backgrounds. how did that shape your tenure?

>> it was everything. what drove dr. martinez and i to this in the first place was this revolving door of trauma. this preventable condition -- in the mid '80s, injury prevention and control began to be looked at as a science. it took a long time for them to evolve away from these random acts of god, that these things follow patterns. this progress and injury control science, and dr. martinez pointed out to people that you think your federal bureaucrats, the your apply to public health practitioners. i spent some time at nhtsa just being the doctor in the house.

once you get the safety agency's to understand that they're all about preventing the number one cause of death in america between the ages of 3 and 34 years of age. i happen to share the same bias. the leadership of an agency inculcates the staff to stay vote -- to save lives, not to address consumer problems with cars and things that break -- it changes the culture and it changes coming to work every day. >> may i make a point? we actually had the engineers and our staff, thus to trauma centers and spend an evening there. -- and our staff come with us to

trauma centers in spend an evening there. i never really saw that. i saw trying to do good your neighbors and your friends, so i saw the most dedicated people i met with my time at nhtsa. he asked for an office with a window, so we painted a window on his cubicle. >> i am not sure either one of you can answer this tweet, but does toyota still use a mechanical cable to connect the gear shift to the transmission, or is the shifter 100% electronic? >> it is a good question. the electric vehicle can put it in the sport mode and can change, you did see a lot of move toward electronics which has a lot of opportunity because he could be much more precise, get feedback to it.

it really saves fuel. >> i hate to branch into this, but the fuel economy is set by the government. everything they do, they have to take weight at of the vehicle. if you can substitute electronics, you can add other conveniences like safety features. it is not as simple as let's go back to the old mechanical stuff. we're going to be driving by wire for ever. we must figure out what the issues are. >> there are going to be new standards for vehicles. what impact will that have on nhtsa? >> when we were there, nhtsa the standards for utility vehicles. the automobile standard was set

27.5 mpg. here is another emerging safety issue that the agency has to try to get out in front of. we will certainly see smaller, stiffer cars that will deliver a bigger pulse of energy to people when they do crash, and the manufacturers have to figure out how to mitigate the crash portions in order to crash -- in order to pass the crash test. it may be material science will change, they may just to deal with what they've got. it will be an engineering challenge. >> there is a certain amount of gamesmanship in any regulation you put out. what adverse effect is that he started making big cars in smaller cars. there are some safety dynamics

with that. the goal is to make sure you maintain safety and energy security. you can't really play that game. you have have parameters that you have to design. it doesn't already a just makes small cars compared to getting a big car, but to make sure that -- i was going to make one comment to you real quick. paillette is an interesting phenomenon right now. -- toyota is an interesting phenomenon right now. at my time and health care, we are looking at toyota to improve health care. what happened here? we're trying to do what toyota does. they have lost control of the culture. has it been a matter of grabbing the data and getting it to the

right organization because they are somewhat distributed? or are the designs coming down the field. we really don't know yet, we may not know for the next two or three months, maybe more. >> alike to think c-span, and also dr. runge and dr. martinez. i served at the institute of electrical and electronic engineers. it is significant that dr. martinez got the ball rolling back in 1998, and we have had a decade of progress, we have a standard for preventive recorders. this to a few minutes ago, he mentioned that just canal, the consumer protection part of this, if nhtsa sides to mandate it, -- decides to mandate it,

there may be a consumer backlash. i would like to ask dr. martinez what he thinks about the initiatives so far and what does he think -- how could ieee help nhtsa in the future? >> when people think black box, they get the wrong idea. this is like a five second refreshen buffer. it does not say if you were drinking or if somebody should to be there. it just gets a vehicle information. with some protection put in, it helps allays some of those fears. you either give the data to somebody like you when you get your car fixed, and you give it to your insurance company and put a claim in, or it turns out

there is a legal discovery process. we take your car anyway and maybe come up with the wrong information, or third, there is the legal proceeding where the car is impounded. we can go forward with the proceedings getting your claim* as we have better error formation. in some states, one at a five claque -- crashes are fraudulent. i think it may help the administration now. >> we have run out of time, but i want to thank you for being with us. in a doctored jeffrey runge, i appreciate it as well. this conversation continues. when we come back, we'll get the perspective from the auto industry.

we have the president and ceo of the auto alliance. the will be right back. dodge the financial crisis inquiry commission continues its work in the subprime lending. the congressional appointed panel helps to publish its report -- copes to publish its report by the end of this year. -- hopes to publish its report by the end of this year. other witnesses include a former city group managers who are expected to testify about the company executive. live coverage is on c-span2. first lady michelle obama focuses on fighting child could obesity with the 2010 studentcam winner, whose prize- winning video was on trial could be city.