On Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration denied a petition request to investigate the Tesla Model 3’s emergency door handles for being hard to locate, and therefore unsafe, in the event of a crash. These rules would take some time to develop; one expert that Bloomberg spoke to estimated that they might not be codified into a new Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard until 2030 at the earliest. To make matters even worse, those backup handles only tend to exist inside vehicles, making first responders’ jobs that much harder. For a backseat passenger to access the emergency handles in a newer R1S or R1T, they must first remove a plastic panel, which shrouds a pull cord. Granting a rulemaking petition is not a decision by NHTSA to issue a new safety standard, but commences the process of gathering input to make an informed decision.