How a Watchdog Blew the Lid Off the GM Recall Scandal

[PoliticAverse]

The alarm bells first went off at the Center for Auto Safety on Feb. 13, when General Motors announced a recall of more than 780,000 model year 2005-2007 Cobalts and Pontiac G5s with faulty ignition switches.

Those ignition switches were so sensitive that even a slight jostle or heavy key ring could immediately shut down the vehicle’s power steering and brakes and prevent air bags from inflating to protect the driver and front seat passenger in case of a crash.

What really caught the auto safety watchdog’s eye was GM’s disclosure that six people had died in crashes related to the ignition problem.

“I said, ‘Six deaths? That’s a lot,’” Clarence Ditlow, the long-time executive director of the center, recalled this week. “The average recall doesn’t have a single death let alone six.”

Read the rest at: http://news.yahoo.com/watchdog-blew-lid-off-gm-100000370.html

[John1956PA]

1. Why did airbags fail to deploy in 303 fatal crashes?

From the article:

What Friedman discovered was stunning: 303 people had died in accidents in GM vehicles after the air bags failed to deploy. The review didn’t try to evaluate what caused the crashes, but the findings added to the mounting reports of problems that went unaddressed for years before GM announced it was recalling more than 1.6 million cars worldwide.

Perhaps some of those 303 instances wherein the airbag failed to deploy involved malfunctioning ignition switches.