WASHINGTON -- The nation's top auto safety regulator is resigning effective next month, ending a two-year term in which she finalized several key safety requirements.
Nicole Nason, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, told her staff Tuesday that she was leaving to pursue other job opportunities and to spend more time with her family. She recently had her third child.
In an interview with The News, she said her tenure has "been an extraordinary two years." She cited accomplishments that included initiatives to fight drunken driving and to require electronic stability control, an anti-rollover technology.
"We've taken on a wide range of tough issues and really tried to think about them in new and creative ways to help make American families safer when traveling," she added.
Nason serves under U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters. The NHTSA administrator's position is appointed by the president, so it's possible Nason would have lost her job at the end of the Bush Administration early next year.
Appointed in May 2006, Nason helped write one of the agency's most controversial and important proposals: new, higher fuel economy standards, unveiled in April.
That proposal, which called for a 4.5-percent annual increase in efficiency standards, was criticized for being too aggressive by automakers who said it could cost up to 82,000 jobs and reduce auto sales by as many as 856,000 vehicles by 2015. A final regulation is expected by year's end as many in Congress have pushed the agency to make it even tougher.
Wade Newton, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the trade group representing Detroit's Big Three, Toyota and six other automakers, praised her tenure. "Nason has been effective in involving all stakeholders in proactively working on critical safety issues," Newton said.
Nason leaves behind a nagging issue: a regulation improving the 35-year-old roof crush standards. The agency told Congress it wouldn't meet a July 1 deadline and would instead work to complete action by October.
NHTSA's proposal would require that a roof withstand a force equal to 2,5 times the vehicle weight while maintaining sufficient head room for a buckled-in average-size adult male to avoid being struck. That's up from the current 1.5 times standard.