Federal Reports

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Our objective was to assess the service performance of inbound international letter post mail and strategies to meet service performance standards.

What We Looked AtSince 2008, auto manufacturers have issued dozens of recalls for vehicles equipped with defective airbags manufactured by Takata. To date, 15 fatalities and more than 220 injuries in the United States alone have been linked to the defective airbags. In addition, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that, as of January 2018, the Takata recalls have affected 37 million vehicles.In December 2015, Congress passed the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, which required our office to audit NHTSA's recall processes. This mandate stemmed from congressional concerns about the Agency's handling of the Takata airbag recall. Accordingly, our audit objectives were to assess NHTSA's processes for (1) monitoring manufacturers' proposed recall remedies and scope and (2) overseeing safety recall implementation, including the sufficiency of recall completion rates.What We FoundNHTSA's process for monitoring for light passenger vehicle recalls lacks documentation and management controls, and does not ensure that remedies are reported completely and in a timely manner. The Agency also does not verify recall completion rates, although it has the authority to do so, and it lacks sufficient management controls to ensure staff assess risk when deciding whether to use oversight tools to improve recall completion rates. Finally, while NHTSA expanded its oversight of the Takata recalls in 2015, by increasing the reporting requirements for manufacturers, it did not follow its own procedures to address low recall completion rates for earlier Takata recalls. Overall, inadequate controls and processes for verifying and collecting manufacturer-reported information have hindered NHTSA's ability to oversee safety recall implementation.Our RecommendationsWe made six recommendations to improve NHTSA's processes for monitoring recall remedies and scope, and overseeing safety recall implementation. NHTSA concurred in full with three of the recommendations and partially concurred with the others.