Vehicle Safety: Enhanced Project Management of New Information Technology Could Help Improve NHTSA’s Oversight of Safety Defects, GAO-16-312: Published: Feb 24, 2016. Publicly Released: Mar 24, 2016: “NHTSA’s mission is to save lives, prevent injuries, and reduce the economic costs due to traffic crashes. As such, NHTSA is responsible for overseeing vehicle safety, a task made more challenging by the increasingly complex electronics and software used in today’s vehicles. NHTSA’s oversight faces greater scrutiny after a series of high-profile vehicle recalls that highlighted deficiencies with NHTSA’s safety-defect investigation processes.”