mr. scovel: right. senator daines: it seemed navistar they were in the field for two months, why did it take a year there is a 10-month gap there. mr. scovel: i think you're talking about safety steps that can be taken by way of corrective action or by way of recall. remember again if you will our current audit focused on the preinvestigative phase. we did get to the timing element of that part of nhtsa's effort. our audit report, not so much our statement for today's hearing, but our audit report released at the end of last week did discuss the length of time it took for an investigative proposal to be evaluated, assessed and decided within the office of defects investigation. that's the key step, of course, because you're never going to get to a possible corrective action or recall at least in a position to be influenced by nhtsa unless you get through this investigation, proposal evaluation and decision stage. we found one instance where an investigative proposal language wished five months. this is

mr. scovel. administrator rosekind, i know you only took the helm at nhtsa at the end of last year and i know you've been working to improve handling of vehicle defects. and i would say you have your work cut out for you. the inspector general's report reaches some serious conclusions regarding nhtsa's ability to detect vehicle defects highlighting things like failure to review information provided by both industry and consumers, botched data analysis, inadequate training and supervision as major problems for the agency. all of these have to concern you. and while we have to ensure that automakers properly report safety violations, it doesn't help if nhtsa staff are not even reviewing the information, or if when they do they aren't employing proper statistical analyses to effect defects. nhtsa isn't following basic best practices and these are problems that can't be solved just by throwing additional resources at the problem. so my question is how do you propose to address these issues? >> thank

mr. scovel knows i'm somebody who consumers these things. this audit report is one of the worst i've ever seen in terms of a government agency. and the reason it is so bad, i agree, mr. scovel, this isn't about resources, this is about blatant incompetent mismanagement, mr. rosekind. let's go through one of many short comings. and this is one that just jumps out of me. when to open an investigation. now if nhtsa can't clear about when an investigation is to be opened, we might as well shut it down. the inspector general found there are three factors to be considered about an investigation. rate of consumer complaints severity of potential safety issues and identification of root cause. now, here is the scary part. based on the interviews the inspector general did, there is disagreement within your agency over when an investigation can ooechb be -- even be opened. the general counsel said severity must be established for all cases along with frequenty and root caused. the odi inspection chief said all three should be met and the director does

mr. scovel.ranking member nelson members of the committee. thank you for inviting me to discuss's nhtsa's safety vehicle oversight. strong oversight is critical for taking timely actions such as gm's faulty ignition switch. as of this month this defect has been linked to more than 110 fatalities and 220 injuries. airbag nondeployments prompted nhtsa's office of defects investigation to look at certain gm vehicles as early as 2007. but odi ultimately determined an investigation was not warranted. we now know that the faulty ignition switch can unexpectedly disable the power steering power brakes and airbags. today, i will discuss the weaknesses we identify relating to odi's procedures for collecting and analyzing vehicle safety data. and for determining which issues warrant further investigation. i will also show how the weaknesses we identified effected odi's handling of the ignition switch defect. we identified three areas of weakness in nhtsa's vehicle safety procedures that undermine its effor

mr. scovel you have identified an alarming lack of transparency and accountability. the division workforce and viamente technical expertise and as mentioned earlier you have mentioned here you delivered 17 recommendations and nhtsa has concurred. you have provided action steps taken to make changes but based on intimate knowledge of this agency as a result of your work. you believe this agency is capable of making these changes and how long do you think it will take? >> thank you senator. i would hold the administrator to his word. when he responded to our report indicated not only concurrence but aggressive intent in a relatively short timeframe dealing with similar reports and other modes of the department of transportation. clearly the burden is on the agency at this point to make good on its promises to reform its processes so that it may then come to congress and back to the american people saying we are prepared to handle what we have and by the way we may be able to do an even better job showed us a policy matter we are accorded more resources. right now sir t

mr. scovel. excuse me, i apologize. the senator from florida, ranking member please make your opening statement. >> thank you. the danger behind the wheel and the tekata airbag process and how to fix the recall done by minority staff. if i may have that entered into the record. >> without objection. >> thank you for your co cooperation on this. you will recall, last year, we started the hearings on these airbags and their defects. we had five deaths and dozens of injuries that were tied to the defective airbags. and we had testimony from the air force lieutenant. lieutenant stephanie erdman. she suffered severe facial injuries and almost lost one of her eyes when her airbag exploded after a relatively minor accident in the florida panhandle near the eggland air force base. since then the recalls have ramped up appropriately. in april, a 22-year-old was involved in an accident in louisiana. the wreck was serious, but as you can see look at this airbag and i want -- do we have the pictures of the lady? that is the one fro

mr. scovel, can you discuss the difficulties receiving consumer complaint and how would clearer guidelines benefit the public. >> we would highlight a couple things for the committee's attention. first in the way nhtsa collects the data. data quality has to be an ultimate concern for the effort to identify vehicle safety defects because if that is not of the highest quality then defects will be missed and resources may be squandered. the accuracy and timeliness is essential. and data comes from a number of sources. the early reporting data from manufacturer needs to be improved. as we have shown, and nhtsa has acknowledged, the categorizeing of the defects means the data quality is diffused and the best analyst would not be able to reach a proper conclusion on data that is not supportable. we also would note that, and i commend the administrator for his attention to that and remarks of them intending to follow-up with manufacturers more often. in our interviews of every employee in the office of defects and representative of each contractors that work in that effort, we learned from the hi

mr. scovel discussed the difficulties nhtsa has handled with consumer complaints how would clear guidelines benefit the public? american receiving complaints we would highlight a couple of things. the way the nhtsa collects data, data quality with its effort to identify defects because it is none of the highest quality bin defects will be invested resources squandered. so to complete with the timeliness is the central and then comes from a number of different sources the early morning reporting data the process needs to be improved as we have shown and nhtsa has acknowledged to categorize problem source defects means the data quality that the best and the west cannot reach the proper solution based on the data that is not supportable. we also note and i commend the administrator for his remarks there will follow-up with manufacturers more often. with our interview every single employee of the office of defects were each contractor we learned from the highest sources that they employ the honor system to determine whether manufacturers are meeting requirements to submit the data. to take that

mr. scovel, it's not because i don't appreciate your work. and i do appreciate both witnesses being here. and i will i don't think i'll complete the questioning. we'll have more members back. if not, we'll hopefully go back to recess before they do. i want to talk about this gap in consumer protection that others are talking about and last saturday i dropped my daughter's car off at dealership. i usually do most of the work myself. my father owned an automotive business. it was an independent auto repair service. so the question becomes if you're the second owner, third owner, fourth owner of a particular vehicle, when i went into that dealership, does that dealership have an obligation to tell me if -- if there's a recall on that particular make and model? >> they do not. that's part of our grow america authority request, is to get that kind of independent -- doing that -- if you go to a new car dealer they should do that for you automatically. >> but are they obligated to do that? >> no. >> if you go to a new car dealership today, are they

mr. calvin scovel. >> chairman thune, ranking member nelson, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to discuss nhtsa's vehicle oversight. strong oversight is critical for taking timely action against vehicle defects such as gm's faulty ignition switch. this defect has been linked to more than 110 fatalities and 210 injuries. airbag non-deployment cause us to look at certain gm vehicles since as early as 2007 but an investigation was not warranted and we know the faulty ignition switch can disable to vehicle's power steering, brakes and airbags. today i will discuss the weaknesses we identified relating to the procedure for collecting and analyzing vehicle safety data and determining which issues warrant further investigation. i will also show how the weaknesses we identify affected the handling of the ignition switch devapidity -- defect. we identified three areas of weakness to identify safety vehicle concerns. first, odi lacks the procedures needed to collect complete and accurate vehicle safety data. the use of the early warning data is limited due to the inconsistency of how