Toyota to Pay $16.375 Million Civil Fine

April 19: Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made the following statement after Toyota Motor Corporation agreed to pay a $16.375 million fine – the largest fine permitted by law – for failing to notify NHTSA of a dangerous pedal defect for almost four months: “By failing to report known safety problems as it is required to do under the law, Toyota put consumers at risk. I am pleased that Toyota has accepted responsibility for violating its legal obligations to report any defects promptly. We are continuing to investigate whether the company has lived up to all its disclosure obligations.”
News Release l Additional Information on Toyota Recalls and Investigations

Kentucky, Nebraska Ban Texting for All Drivers

April 15: Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood applauded Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear and Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman for signing anti-texting-while-driving bills into law for all drivers in their states. In Kentucky, the new law also prohibits drivers under 18 from using cell phones behind the wheel at any time. In Nebraska, state law already forbids teen drivers with provisional licenses, learner's permits or school permits from texting or talking on cell phones.
News Release

Aggressive National Standards for Fuel Economy and First-Ever Greenhouse Gas Emission Levels Are Set

April 1: Responding to one of the first major directives of the Obama Administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today jointly established historic new federal rules that set the first-ever national greenhouse gas emissions standards and will significantly increase the fuel economy of all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States. The rules could potentially save the average buyer of a 2016 model year car $3,000 over the life of the vehicle and, nationally, will conserve about 1.8 billion barrels of oil and reduce nearly a billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the lives of the vehicles covered.
News Release l Complete Details on the Final Rule

Major Investigations to Resolve Issue of Sudden Acceleration are Announced

March 30: Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced two major investigations designed to answer questions surrounding the issue of unintended vehicle acceleration. The National Academy of Sciences will examine the broad subject of unintended acceleration and electronic vehicle controls across the entire automotive industry. Separately, NHTSA has enlisted NASA engineers with expertise in areas such as computer controlled electronic systems, electromagnetic interference and software integrity to help tackle the issue of unintended vehicle acceleration in Toyotas.
News Release

Traffic Fatalities for 2009 Reach Record Low

March 11: Overall traffic fatalities reported at the end of 2009 reached the lowest level since 1954, declining for the 15th consecutive quarter. The projected data puts the highway death count at 33,963, down 8.9% from 37,261 in 2008.
News Release l Preliminary '09 fatality data