The NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), responsible for all those lovely official crash-test and impact reports wants to keep some vehicle safety data (covering consumer complaints, warranty claims and information on vehicles involved in deaths and injuries) secret, citing that the disclosure of information "will cause substantial competitive harm and will impair the government's ability to obtain this information in the future if released."
The article mentions that automakers succeeded in making the NHTSA keep warranty claims and consumer complaints confidential by claiming that "releasing the data could harm competition." The only way I see it "harming competition" is if people realize that a product is bad or dangerous and stay away -- in fact, I'd say that it "aids competition", not harming it. Warranty claims and consumer complaints should be public information -- if I had a problem with my car, I'd want other consumers to know and have access to that information.
I thought the NHTSA's role was to protect citizens by providing safety information, not to protect automakers by hiding safety information. .
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