Company Takes Legal Action to Release TREAD Act Data

Quality Control Systems Corp. has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in federal District Court to obtain secret data about deaths and injuries held by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). R.A. Whitfield, the company’s director, said that the public needs access to the Early Warning Reports collected under the Transportation Recall Enhancement Accountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act to better understand why so many deaths and injuries related to tire failures in the Ford Explorer have continued long after the well-known tyre recalls that affected the vehicle.

The TREAD Act was passed in October 2000 in response to Ford Explorer- Firestone tyre-related rollover deaths in the U.S. and Ford’s overseas recalls. TREAD amended federal transportation law to require vehicle and equipment manufacturers to report safety recalls or campaigns on vehicles and components in a foreign country if they also sold substantially similar products in the U.S. It also mandated NHTSA to create regulations governing quarterly Early Warning Reports — information on property damage and warranty claims, consumer, dealer and field reports, production numbers and deaths and injuries collected by manufacturers — with the intent of using the data to spot defect trends.

When President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law, he directed NHTSA “to implement the information disclosure requirements of the [TREAD] Act in a manner that assures maximum public availability of information.”

“It is truly outrageous that the Bush administration would move to seal such essential auto safety information from the public,” said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen and former NHTSA administrator. “Public access to this type of data could mean the detection of problems like the deadly Ford Explorer/Firestone tyre combination and could save lives.”

Since 2000, safety and consumer advocates and manufacturers have fought over what – if any – of the information collected under the TREAD Act is public. The safety community has pushed for maximum accessibility.

The Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA) has insisted that the TREAD Act specifically exempted EWR data from public view under Exemption 3 of the Freedom of Information Act. (Exemption 3 states that information is not public under FOIA if Congress specifically passes a law preventing its release)

NHTSA has consistently argued that some EWR information should be kept confidential under FOIA’s Exemption 4 — information that may cause competitive harm. In January 2001, when the agency began to establish the EWR regulations, it envisioned making much of the information — including death and injury data — public and received few requests from manufacturers for confidentiality. But as some manufacturers fought tenaciously for secrecy, NHTSA designated more classes of information private under Exemption 4.

In March 2004, Public Citizen sued Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta over the confidentiality of EWR data. The suit claimed that NHTSA had deviated substantially from its initial proposal when it passed a final rule that broadly determined that whole classes of tyre data are confidential. The Rubber Manufacturers Association, which represents tiremakers, filed counter claims. In March 2006, U.S. District Judge Robert Leon ruled in favor of Public Citizen and directed NHTSA to revisit the rule. Judge Leon ruled a week later that EWR data was not subject to FOIA Exemption 3. The RMA appealed.

As the rule stands today, only death and injury and property damage claims filed with the government through EWR are supposed to be made public. But NHTSA has refused to release any of the data until RMA’s appeal is resolved.