Skip to main content

Hey, DOGE Team, Why Do We Need NHTSA Crash Testing Cars if IIHS Does It Better and At No Expense to Taxpayers? End the Wasteful and Costly Overlap

Vehicle Safety Testing In America is done by two groups. One group does it best and at no cost to the American Taxpayer. The second group costs American taxpayers money. 

President Trump has tapped America’s modern-age renaissance man, Elon Musk, to weed out waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal government. Thus far, USAID, the Department of Education, and the Pentagon are primary targets for these cost-saving measures. Mr. Musk is no dummy. He likely has already done an analysis of which departments have the most likely sources of waste, fraud, and abuse and also which are the most likely to be resolvable using practical efforts. My intent here is not to criticize or applaud the DOGE team in any manner. Rather, my goal is to point out that one government agency is duplicating an expensive endeavor being handled with no cost to the taxpayer. That’s downright wasteful. 

NHTSA Crash Testing
NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), a part of the Department of Transportation, is a government agency that has been tasked with ensuring that America’s highways and byways are as safe as they can be. This is a wide-ranging goal that I support 110%. I’ve lost friends and family members in vehicle crashes, mostly caused by drunk drivers. NHTSA battles hard to make our roads, drivers, and vehicles safer, something I think every American can understand and most would wholeheartedly support. 

However, one thing that NHTSA does is crash-test vehicles. They do a pretty good job with the crash tests. The results are oversimplified for consumers using a “Five-Star” safety ratings system. The idea is that shoppers can use this rating system to learn about the safety of the vehicles they are considering owning, be they new or used. It makes perfect sense. If you are considering two vehicles and one has a 2-star rating and another a 5-star rating, you may wish to investigate how one could be so terrible and possibly remove it from consideration. The problem is nearly every vehicle tested earns a 4-star or 5-star rating. Making the differences less than obvious. 

NHTSA Does What IIHS Does, But Not As Well
If NHTSA were the only entity in America crash-testing vehicles, I would suggest DOGE skip it and move on to another possible source of wasteful spending. The thing is, there is an independent, not-for-profit group that is also doing vehicle crash testing. It’s called the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, IIHS. This group has been around since the 1960s, and today does more crash tests than NHTSA. IIHS also does a much better job with the tests, in my expert opinion. 

Why Vehicle Safety Experts and Testers Turn to IIHS and Not NHTSA
I have been reporting on vehicle safety for two decades. I routinely use both NHTSA and IIHS safety ratings to complete long-format vehicle reviews at Car Talk, where I have worked for about nine years. I have tested and reviewed a vehicle a week for a decade, and I also conduct shorter tests of vehicles back-to-back at special media-only events conducted on racetracks and closed courses for safety. Of course, we don’t crash the cars. Rather, we leave that to IIHS and NHTSA. They conduct testing, and we, who review the vehicles to assist shoppers when they are buying, pull in the results so that our reviews offer crash safety scores. The thing is, I find that IIHS has a broader selection of crash-test results, more timely crash-test results, and far greater detail for those who wish to look deeply into the results. To say it simply, IIHS is a better crash-testing organization than NHTSA. So why do we need both if IIHS is testing all the cars that NHTSA is, plus many more?

Technical Details and Evolving Difficulty
Both NHTSA and IIHS conduct all the tests you would expect, such as a frontal collision and side collision. However, IIHS added many more tests. IIHS also tests roof strength and conducts active safety system testing that goes beyond what NHTSA does. In fact, IIHS does headlight testing that is real-world useful to shoppers and by far the best such testing done by any agency in the world. IIHS also makes their tests harder and harder to earn top scores on as time passes. It makes the speeds higher, and the side impact test sled gets bigger and heavier. It is no exaggeration to say that IIHS is pushing automakers to constantly make vehicles safer. My personal opinion is that the “Top Safety Pick” designation packs a lot more punch to a consumer than a 5-star rated vehicle designation. 

Funding Sources
NHTSA has a budget of just under one billion dollars in 2020. It’s risen to over $1.6 billion in 2025. Yet, article after article reports that our roads are not safer. More deaths are occurring. Not less. We are orders of magnitude safer today on our roads than we were in the bad old days of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, but the safety curve flattened dramatically and has not improved much over the past couple of decades. Eliminating drunk drivers would take roughly a third of the death off the table immediately, but America loves its most popular poison and has opted not to make drunk driving a crime that drivers fear committing. 

By contrast to NHTSA, IIHS is funded entirely by America’s top insurance companies. IIHS and the insurance industry both want the same things:

  • Reduced deaths
  • Reduced injuries
  • Lower costs due to death and injury
  • Lower costs for repairs 

IIHS - Responsiveness
Insurers figured out long ago that they make more money when they pay fewer claims. That’s how IIHS began, and why it is so successful today. As a safety reporter at two publications, I frequently receive press releases from IIHS. They exemplify professionalism. Many of the press releases include images and videos free to use by the media. If I want more details or if I want a quote to place in a story, IIHS offers instant help. Here’s an example of just how helpful IIHS is. I wanted some background today for a story I am doing related to seat belts and the audible and visual alerts that we all know and don’t love. I phoned IIHS, and Joe Young, my contact at the organization, picked up the phone on the third ring. He gave me about 15 minutes of his time, answered all my questions, and when I asked him to e-mail me a link to a law related to the subject, he did so -  in three minutes. IIHS is hyper-helpful to the media who report on vehicle safety, almost like a partner. I have never been emailed a NHTSA press release. 

Don’t Throw the Baby Out With the Bathwater
As an expert in vehicle safety who has reported on the subject in two decades, I am not suggesting that DOGE close NHTSA. My suggestion would be simply to stop the ridiculous overlap of crash testing that IIHS does better. Shift the savings to the other aspects of NHTSA’s work, or simply return the savings back to the taxpayers by reducing the budget back to the 2020 budget. Having two agencies in America crashing the same cars, and reporting the same results is simply silly and the very definition of government waste.

Do you think we need two agencies doing the same work?

If IIHS is doing more and better crash testing, why are we spending tax dollars to do it worse and less?
 

John Goreham is a credentialed New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on Linkedin and follow his work on his personal X channel or on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John's by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ grammar and punctuation software when proofreading and he also uses image generation tools. 

Image of dollars flying out of a crash test vehicle created by John Goreham using Grok.

Comments

Steve (not verified)    February 12, 2025 - 11:29PM

"The results are oversimplified for consumers using a “Five-Star” safety ratings system."

IIHS rates vehicles on a four degree system, "Good", "Acceptable", "Marginal", or "Poor." By your logic, isn't using four degrees instead of five an "over-oversimplification"?

That so many vehicles today receive four- and five-star ratings from the NHTSA is itself proof of the agency's effectiveness - manufacturers are motivated by sales, sales are contingent on consumer perception of the product offered. Who would want to buy a two-star car? Vehicles are built to higher and higher safety standards with each passing year, and when tested they score higher than their predecessors. All of this is a good thing, unless you actually are arguing for a "diversity of safety," where manufacturers are somehow encouraged to expand their product lines and build less safe vehicles only to have a wider spread of crash test scores...?

Jason (not verified)    February 21, 2025 - 11:32AM

Did you look at the methodology of testing from the different groups. IIHS does their testing in labs under controlled situations to "simulate real world events". Since the 1970s NHTSA studies real world crashes. Most of their research comes from real crashes with real drivers on real highways and country roads across the country. A Nissan Altima being pulled into a wall on a sled at exactly 35 mph is not going to provide the same data as a Nissan Altima being driven by a 25 year old on their phone crashing into a jersey barrier.
Also, having been in the insurance industry for over a decade and attending those showcase events saying IIHS is 100% funded by the insurance industry is misleading. NHTSA doesn't get handed the keys to BMWs, Cadillacs, and Lexus as a courtesy for spending an afternoon driving one around the track. At NHTSA I wasn't given a $200 bottle of scotch at an underwriters conference.

Mike Reynolds (not verified)    March 10, 2025 - 8:00PM

It's sad journalists don't do their research these days.
1. IIHS has no regulatory authority. This means they cannot make laws or impose regulation on vehicle manufacturers. What do you think would happen if regulation went away?
2. NHTSA represents the interests of the American people. If you didn't already know... the INSURANCE Institute for Highway Safety represents the interests of.... you betcha, the insurers.

Mike Reynolds (not verified)    March 10, 2025 - 8:03PM

The International Institute for Highway Safety or IIHS is a non profit organization dedicated to reducing deaths, injuries, and property damage from motor vehicle accidents. But it is important to know that this organization was founded and is funded by insurance companies.
While both IIHS and NHTSA both perform crash test worthiness testing, in my opinion IIHS performs their research on behalf of and for the insurance companies, while NHTSA performs research along with setting and enforcing federal vehicle safety regulations, for the American people.
I recently saw a letter sent from State Farm to its direct repair providers stating they refused to pay for an OEM windshield replacement unless the repair provider could provide proof that the windshield camera calibration fails with an aftermarket windshield.
Why are aftermarket windshields a concern? This is because aftermarket windshields often cause operational issues with critical driving support and safety systems. More specifically, these brackets come secured to the windshield with adhesive. On poor quality aftermarket windshields this bracket may not be properly aligned, or in some cases even come loose from the glass. And why is this important? These cameras are used to control safety and driver assist systems like lane keeping assist, adaptive cruise control, and automatic emergency braking.
This is such a concern that Audi, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mercedes Benz, Nissan, Stellantis, Subaru, Tesla, Toyota, and Volvo have all released position statements specifically warning repairers that aftermarket glass may cause safety systems to malfunction.
Around 30% of auto insurance claims are windshield related and I suspect that had something to do with why IIHS performed a study which at one point I believe was published publicly, but as of now I am only able to find remnants of the results in published articles that cite the study on Repairer Driven News.
In this article Sean O’Malley of IIHS, which is funded by State Farm, when discussing a 2016 Honda Civis that was used in the testing of aftermarket windshields, “noticed the lane-departure was way off.” And it was determined that the aftermarket windshield the IIHS purchased had a misaligned camera mount. In addition to being misaligned he noted that the camera bracket did not hold the camera snug allowing him to steer the vehicle and that he was even able to steer the car by reaching up and adjusting the camera, which was “kind of scary”.
Although the rhetoric used by O’Malley of IIHS seems to suggest a bias that this was a “fluke” and also blaming a Honda dealership for calibrating the system incorrectly.
But what is obvious to anyone who understands these systems is that a camera that is loose in the bracket of an aftermarket windshield cannot operate properly after a calibration since it will continuously shift with vibration during vehicle operation.
And this explains why many vehicle manufacturers have published statements warning repairers of this concern.
If IIHS is an organization founded by insurers like State Farm, then there should be no question that State farm is aware of the research that shows the serious dangers of using these aftermarket parts.