NHTSA PIN (COMES IN VELVET PRESENTATION BOX)

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA, often pronounced "nit-suh") is an agency of the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government, part of the Department of Transportation. It describes its mission as “Save lives, prevent injuries, reduce vehicle-related crashes.”[1]. As part of its activities, NHTSA is charged with safety performance and fuel economy standards for motor vehicles, the latter called Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE). It also licenses vehicle manufacturers and vehicle importers, allows or blocks importation of vehicles, safety-related vehicle parts (including seatbelts, airbags, safety glass, side airbags, brakes, accelerators, bumpers, tires, doorlocks, odometers) vehicle-theft prevention including vehicle identification number (VIN), anthropomorphic dummies used in testing, vehicle test procedures, insurance cost information, emissions controls, and child restraint seats. It has asserted preemptive regulatory control over Greenhouse gas emissions but this has been disputed by many state regulatory agencies including California Air Resources Board. One of NHTSA’s major achievements in pursuit of its safety mission is the data files maintained by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis. In particular, the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, or FARS, has become a resource for traffic safety research not only in the US, but throughout the world. Research contributions using FARS by researchers from many countries appear in many non-US technical publications, and provide a significant database and knowledge bank on the subject. Even with this database, conclusive analysis of crash causes often remains difficult and controversial, with experts debating the veracity and statistical validity of results.