Consumer Compliant Information

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requests approval for reinstatement of a previously approved collection of information. The purpose of this voluntary collection is to gather information from consumers of motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment for use in identifying motor vehicle safety defects by NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI). Consumer vehicle safety complaints are continuously collected by ODI and analyzed to determine if a defect trend exists that may require an investigation or the initiation of a recall. Consumers of motor vehicles or motor vehicle equipment voluntarily submit complaints through NHTSA's Vehicle Safety Hotline, NHTSA’s website (www.nhtsa.gov), or through correspondence on an as-needed basis. The complaints disclose consumers’ allegations of a safety defect that they experienced with their vehicle or vehicle equipment, including defects that resulted in injuries, crashes, property damage, or death. All complaints are converted to a Vehicle Owner Questionnaire (VOQ) format and reviewed by ODI investigation/engineer staff. An ODI investigator may respond to a consumer submitting a complaint if ODI requires more information. ODI staff determines if complaints/VOQs describing an unreasonable safety risk in a specific make, model and model year of a vehicle or vehicle equipment warrant further action by the agency. This supporting statement is for the collection of information associated with safety-related problems owners are encountering with their motor vehicles and items of motor vehicle equipment, which include tires, child safety seats, motorcycle helmets, etc. NHTSA estimates the total burden of this information collection request (ICR) is 9,725 hours. This is a decrease from when NHTSA last sought approval of 17,295 hours. The adjustment in burden is a reflection of the decrease in the number of complaints NHTSA expects to receive in each of the next three years and a reduction of the estimated time it takes to submit each complaint. NHTSA previously estimated that the agency would receive 69,181 complaints annually. Based on data on the actual volume of complaints in the last few years, NHTSA now estimates that the agency will receive approximately 58,350 complaints a year. NHTSA also now estimates that each complaint will take only 10 minutes to submit, as opposed to 15 minutes. This reduction in burden for each response is a result of enhancements to the online complaint form, which requires less time for consumers to complete. This reinstatement will be an adjustment to decrease the previous approved burden hours from 17,295 to 9,725 hours as a result of the number of respondents submitting consumer complaints to NHTSA decreased from 69,181 to 58,350, while the average time to submit a complaint decreased from 15 minutes to 10 minutes.

The latest form for Consumer Compliant Information expires 2026-07-31 and can be found here.