Car and Driver: Highway Law: 7 Things You Should Know About the New U.S. Transportation Act

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With a new year must come new laws. If you didn’t realize Congress passed a $305 billion transportation bill in early December and that President Obama signed it, you’re not alone. The FAST Act (Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act), after years of wrangling by Department of Transportation, appropriates five years of funding for the country’s trains, highways, bridges and various other infrastructures that keep us all moving.

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Naturally, we’ve focused on what it does most immediately for drivers and automakers, not the scheduled bridge repairs that may or may not happen where you live. The FAST Act also incorporates many standalone bills (most of which were recall-related) introduced within the past two years in response to the General Motors ignition switch scandal.

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More Recall Notifications, Fines, Rental Restrictions

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is experimenting with a new communication method called “electronic mail” that can deliver recall notices directly to affected car owners. So far, automakers are required to notify owners through first-class paper mail but will be given a paperless option going forward. This could help reach people who move and don’t update their registrations. Expect automakers to jump on board to save costs.

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NHTSA has been instructed to redesign its lousy website. It also will publish annual reviews of every manufacturer’s recalls over the past five years, broken out by part and by repair completion rates. Also, six states will be given grant money to inform vehicle owners of open recalls at the time of registration (the pilot will last only two years; most states have no such requirements). Franchised dealers now will be required to notify any owner whose vehicle has been brought in for service that it has an open recall.

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Rental car companies can no longer rent vehicles subject to recall. The law applies to any rental vehicle under 10,000 pounds GVWR owned by a company with at least 35 vehicles in its total fleet. The companies must take the cars offline within 24 hours of the first receipt of a recall notice (or 48 hours if the recall affects at least 5000 vehicles in their fleet).

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The maximum civil penalty for manufacturers that violate the Motor Vehicle Safety Act has increased to $105 million from $35 million. Car owners will now have 15 years from the date of the initial recall notification to fix their vehicles at no charge (up from 10 years). NHTSA also may require manufacturers to install in-vehicle recall alerts—likely over a wireless data connection—but right now it’s only an experiment.

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Event Data Recorders

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Event Data Recorders (EDRs) are automotive black boxes that have been used since the 1970s to analyze airbag deployments. They collect information from the vehicle’s computers and store the last few seconds before an actual crash. Otherwise, EDRs retain nothing (and never collect audio or video). Since 2014, EDRs have been mandatory in all new cars and manufacturers must collect the same type of data. But the information they collect goes well beyond airbag deployment, including seat-belt usage, speed, steering-wheel angle, and more —which has prompted privacy fears due to an insurance company or police using the data against a driver.

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In the past few years, more than a dozen states passed laws clarifying that the data strictly belongs to the car’s owner or lessee, and now the federal government has codified this wording nationwide. Law enforcement, including the DMV, can request EDR data without your consent only via a court order or ongoing investigation (or can use it for statistical purposes provided they strip all personal details). Insurance companies can’t see it unless they file suit against you, which in most cases would be very unlikely.

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Tires Will Be Graded by Fuel Efficiency

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Low-rolling-resistance tires are a fact of our high-mpg lifestyles, and within two years, tire companies will be required to meet certain minimum friction coefficient targets as they contribute to fuel efficiency. Minimum wet traction standards will also be imposed (but not at the expense of fuel efficiency or high-performance tires rated Z and above, supposedly). Light-truck, winter, deep tread, spare, and any tires less than 12 inches in diameter will be exempt.

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Whistleblowers Get In the Action

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Spurred by three major automotive scandals—the GM ignition switch recall, Takata airbag inflators, and Volkswagen diesel emissions cheating—the feds now will protect employees and contractors within the auto industry, including parts suppliers, if they snitch something worthy and original. If the info is good and used to penalize the offending company by more than $1 million, the whistleblower is entitled to between 10 and 30 percent of the total catch.

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• How the EPA is Helping Carmakers Hit 2025’s 54.5-mpg CAFE Standard-
• How Your Car Is the Perfect Tool to Track and Report Your Every Move-
• U.S. Dept. of Justice Files Suit Against VW for Diesel-Emissions Cheats-

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Low-Volume Replica Automakers

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Automakers building cars based on certified replica designs that are at least 25 years old can now sell brand-new models without abiding to most federal safety regulations. We’ve detailed those changes here.

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Marijuana Testing

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We know a thing or two about driving while high, but the feds are still dazed and confused. NHTSA says marijuana isn’t a significant risk for causing car crashes. Colorado has tried to measure THC and convict drivers after they’ve been pulled over. Now, the government wants to study weed’s effect on driving and come up with a potential method to detect and punish stoners at the wheel—if it’s even possible.

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Miscellaneous Goodies

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A car’s active driving assists, such as blind-spot monitoring, will be required to be displayed on window stickers. A new national motorcycle advisory council will recommend new methods to make roadway barriers and maintenance safer for bikers. And NHTSA, for the first time ever, will be required to outline its yearly policy agenda in detail for the public to see. So we can all keep track.

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