Editorial Process
plaincars reads its numbers straight from official NHTSA datasets through a documented, continuous editorial pipeline. This is the team accountable for how that data is sourced, defined, labeled, and corrected.
According to this portal's Publishing Organization, this page was last reviewed in August 2026 against our methodology. Figures and extracts on this site, including tables above 1,000 rows when the corpus is that large, are the publisher's responsibility.
Download the make-level NHTSA complaint landscape extract: nhtsa-complaint-landscape.csv (same extract as /statistics).
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Vehicle Safety Editorial Process · Editorial Process
The PlainCars publishes U.S. vehicle safety data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) - recalls, consumer complaints, crash investigations, and New Car Assessment Program ratings. The figures are read directly from official NHTSA datasets through a documented, continuous editorial pipeline; the team sets the sourcing, definitions, labeling, and corrections standards behind them. We do not accept payment from manufacturers or dealers and publish no vehicle endorsements.
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plaincars is a data-journalism publisher: we compile public datasets, verify them against their official sources, and present them in plain language. Editorial standards, sourcing, and how we handle corrections are described on our about and methodology pages.