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Links

Our links page is categorized in three sections:
Product Defect Research Using the Internet
Legal and Product Safety Sites
Standards Organizations

Product Defect Research Using the Internet

Search for Standards

NSSN is an excellent source for global standards. Using keywords, you can identify national and international safety standards and see their abstracts. Most standards require a payment for the full copy, and some may be downloaded.

Medical Devices

The Food and Drug Administration site allows you to search for adverse events involving medical devices. These events must be reported to FDA by medical practitioners whenever a medical device fails, whether someone was injured or not. You can search by manufacturer, model or keywords. http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfMAUDE/search.CFM

The National Library of Medicine provides a fantastic online search system at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gquery/gquery.fcgi. You can search using keywords, and obtain the full text of medical research papers.

Patents

When investigating a product issue, it is often useful to search for the product’s patents, if any, and those of similar or competitive products developed earlier and later. The United States Patent and Trademark Office site at http://www.uspto.gov/ allows you to search all US patents, and you can view or print the full text online for free (for patents issued since 1976). You can search by title, inventor, company, subject, or by keywords in the specification or claims. You can also see the referenced patents and view or print those as well.

Automobiles and Light Trucks

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is probably the single most useful site for auto defect research. The following searchable databases are found at http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/problems where you will find titles and a short description of the following:

Recalls
Technical Service Bulletins
Consumer Complaints
Defect Investigations

You just type in the year, make and model, and get nearly instant access to these databases and more. Many of the source documents are also available online. If you need the full text of a particular item that is not available online, you can send a request (which you make by e-mail) and get the item you need in the mail. Jumping off from this site, you can visit other areas of NHTSA, including access to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and current press information about newly announced recalls. NHTSA also has special areas for child restraints and air bag information.

A new website for obtaining Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards is at http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~zippy/49-CFR-571.html This site is a whole lot easier to use than the government sites.

The National Center for Statistics and Analysis (NCSA) is located at http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/ncsa/ This site provides access to the following research tools which you might use for more detailed research:

Fatal Analysis Reporting System (FARS)
National Automotive Sampling System (NASS GES and NASS CDS)
Special Crash Investigations (SCI)
Crash Outcome Data Evaluation System (CODES)

For additional detailed research, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics is located at http://www.bts.gov

Alldata Corporation is a private company providing service information to mechanics and consumers. Located at http://www.alldata.tsb.com/ this resource lists the same Recalls and Technical Service Bulletins provided through NHTSA. For a fee of $29.95, you can order a CD Rom containing the full text Service Bulletins with illustrations, or Service/Repair information for a single make, year and model of car or truck. This can be the most efficient method of obtaining the complete service bulletins.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has a website at http://www.iihs.org/ containing a wealth of information on highway safety subjects.

Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety at http://www.saferoads.org/ is a good source of public policy information on auto safety.

The Society of Automotive Engineers at http://www.sae.org/ provides access to tools for finding Technical Papers, Standards and topical automotive subjects.

For safety information on Highway Trucks, the Federal Highway Administration at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ is the source for legislation, regulations, statistics and more.

Consumer Products

The Federal Trade Commission at http://www.ftc.gov provides timely reports on consumer protection issues.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) at http://www.cpsc.gov/ provides a current database of recall information on Automotive and Transportation, Toys and Child Safety and Software, Computers and Office Equipment. Industrial Equipment

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) site at http://www.osha.gov/ allows you to search OSHA Standards & Related Documents covering the full range of industrial safety issues.

Legal and Product Safety Sites

DOT - National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
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