BLOGOSPHERE: For NHTSA's reform hawk, it's all about follow-up

WASHINGTON (March 4, 2016) — It's the follow-through that counts.

That's the message from the Transportation Department's Office of Inspector General (OIG), which issued an audit report in February finding that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) hadn't done enough on 10 reforms recommended by the OIG in 2011 to bolster the agency's defect investigation operations.

Most of the shortcomings documented in the report occurred prior to NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind's December 2014 arrival at the agency.

But the inspector general's audit illustrates just how tough it will be for hard-charging safety hawk Rosekind to enact his own reform agenda, one far more ambitious than what the inspector general proposed five years ago, in his final year on the job.

The thing is, NHTSA technically “completed” all 10 reforms recommended by the inspector general in 2011, the report said. Where NHTSA fell short — in seven instances — was in the follow-through.

For example, NHTSA pledged to do a better job in documenting why defect investigations took longer than expected. But, the latest audit said, it failed to do so in 16 of 24 such cases from April 2012 through December 2013.

In anther reform that went all but nowhere, NHTSA crafted a plan for better evidence documentation in defect investigations. It was followed just four times in the 36 “preliminary evaluations” NHTSA opened from March 2013 through Dec. 2013, the inspector general found.

A NHTSA spokesman told Reuters that the agency agreed with the inspector general's findings, and intends to implement the recommended changes by June 30.

Mr. Rosekind has already committed to make 17 reforms outlined in last summer's blistering inspector general audit, on top of the more than 40 changes he's set in motion voluntarily to overhaul the agency.

The inspector general's report show there's a difference between “completing” a reform, and taking the necessary steps to ensure its actually takes root.

And with just 10 months left on Mr. Rosekind's tenure, the clock is ticking.

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Reporter Ryan Beene wrote this blog that was posted on the website of Automotive News, a Detroit-based sister publication of Tire Business.