Query NHTSA vehicle safety ratings and complaints data by VIN or vehicle attributes

Steps

1. Review the NHTSA Datasets and APIs page at nhtsa.gov to identify the correct endpoints: the Safety Ratings API for NCAP crash test scores and the Complaints API for owner-reported issues
2. Retrieve safety ratings by querying the ratings endpoint with vehicle parameters (model year, make, model) to obtain overall scores and sub-scores for frontal crash, side crash, and rollover resistance
3. Query the complaints endpoint using make, model, and model year parameters to retrieve owner complaint records including component category and narrative descriptions
4. Join the complaints data with the NHTSA vPIC VIN decode response (from vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov) to enrich complaint records with full vehicle configuration details
5. Paginate through complaint results as high-volume makes may return large result sets; implement caching with a TTL appropriate to the infrequency of NHTSA data updates
6. Display NHTSA star ratings alongside a link to the official NHTSA results page as required by NHTSA data use guidelines