Nearly 8 million cars recalled for faulty Takata airbags

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has issued an urgent advisory to the owners of 7.8 million cars throughout the U.S., which involve ten different manufacturers, for a problem involving faulty airbags.

The Department of Transportation will conduct a review of the NHTSA, which has been criticized for its handling of the Takata airbag recall. The agencies website, which helps owners determine whether their car has been recalled, was down for two days after they released an urgent recall notice. An investigation by the New York Times, found that the NHTSA did not react to problems until they reached a crisis level, including the Takata airbag problems.

The NHTSA has urged the owners of certain Toyota, Honda, Mazda, BMW, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors vehicles to act immediately on recall notices to replace defective Takata airbags. The message from the NHTSA came with a particular urgency for owners of vehicles affected by regional recalls in the following areas: Florida, […]

Jury awards $175 million in Trinity Guardrail Case

Trinity Industries, the maker of highway guardrails, was found by a jury on Monday to have defrauded the federal government. The jury in Texas, found Trinity liable in the civil lawsuit for violating the False Claims Act, according to CNBC. The jury said that those violations caused the U.S. Government to incur $175 million in damages, as the federal government helps state transportation departments purchase approved products, including Trinity guardrail products, for use on highways across the country. Under the federal False Claims Act, the verdict amount would be tripled to $525 million.

The case was filed by Joshua Harman, a competitor who discovered that in 2005, the company had made changes to a piece of steel in the front of the guardrail without alerting the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), as is required. Harman’s lawsuit claimed the modifications made by Trinity could be deadly. […]

GM issued 75th recall of the year this week while ignition switch death toll rose to 24

Not even the police are safe in General Motors cars. GM announced its 75th recall of 2014 earlier this week, recalling 7,600 Chevrolet Caprice police vehicles, because of a transmission issue. The Detroit News reported that the vehicles could roll away when the drivers believed they were in park. This recall marked GM’s seventh recall in nine days.

GMs recalls now total approximately 30 million vehicles. The most recent recall includes the Chevrolet Caprice police vehicles from the 2011-2013 model years. GM said that the cars, which were imported from Australia, could be shifted out of park without a foot on the brake pedal. The problem may also enable the driver to remove the ignition key without the transmission being in park. This could cause a potential roll away hazard and increasing the risk of injury to occupants exiting the vehicle or people walking nearby. […]

As families begin to settle with GM over crashes, is it too little too late?

Last week, more than a dozen families were given a choice to accept a settlement or fight GM in a potentially lengthy court battle over deaths in crashes tied to faulty ignition switches. The families of two Wisconsin girls killed in the 2006 crash of Chevrolet Cobalt accepted offers from GM, dropping a lawsuit in favor the settlement.

The crash that killed 18-year-old Natasha Weigel and 15-year-old Amy Rademaker was one of the first blamed on the faulty switches. According to ABC News, a Wisconsin state trooper investigating the crash made the connection between the position of the ignition switch and the air bags not deploying. An investigation into GMs delay in handling the recall found that both GM and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) were aware of the trooper’s report, but largely ignored it.

Despite evidence from this crash and others that faulty ignition switches were causing engines to stall and air bags to be disabled, […]

NHTSA coming under fire for not acting fast enough on recalls

An investigation by The New York Times into the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), has found that the safety organization has been slow to identify and act on vehicle safety issues. According to The New York Times, the failures go well beyond its slow reaction to the GM ignition switch defect.

The Associated Press reported that this week Congressional Republicans charged that the NHTSA was years late in detecting the deadly problem with General Motors’ cars and lacks the expertise to oversee increasingly complex vehicles.

The congressional report stated that safety regulators should have discovered GM’s faulty ignition switches seven years before the company recalled 2.6 million cars to fix the deadly problem. It also raised serious questions about the NHTSA’s ability to keep the public safe.

The New York Times reported that by the time GM started the recall, […]