Airbag Tragic Mess, NHTSA Tragic Mess


Airbag Tragic Mess, NHTSA Tragic Mess

November, 2014

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

The Automotive News published an excellent article (and related articles) on these two tragic messes.

“For the second time this year, a long-standing defect linked to deaths and injuries has triggered a mushrooming auto-safety crisis, lending more fuel to criticism that federal regulators haven’t done enough to protect consumers from such dangers.

Ten automakers have issued recalls for millions of airbags that, rather than save drivers and passengers in a crash, can explode with a lethal spray of jagged metal.

The flaw is connected to two deaths in what were otherwise fender benders, and two others may be related; just this month, a Florida woman died with such unexpectedly severe gashes in her neck after a crash that police reportedly suspected homicide — until a recall notice for the vehicle arrived the following week.

Perhaps most unnerving to consumers, the problem doesn’t yet appear to be contained. On Wednesday, Oct. 22, two automakers told Automotive News that they couldn’t say for sure whether all of the bad airbags had been identified….After watching the agency she ran in the 1970s stagger last week, former NHTSA Administrator Joan Claybrook put it bluntly: “I think they’re having a meltdown.”…. “I am flummoxed by this,” Claybrook said, dismissing the regional tack as a cost-saving maneuver. “This is not a regulatory agency; it’s an auto industry booster agency.””

See http://www.autonews.com/article/20141026/OEM11/310279955/nhtsa-back-in-cross-hairs-as-airbag-crisis-escalates

The tragic truth continues to emerge.   The Obama Administration’s feckless failures to protect Americans continues to produce tragedies.  Shameful, willful, repeated inaction and actions putting and keeping corporate servants in positions of power and influence over people’s lives.  Not what the American people voted for but what corporate lobbyists pay for.  Picture the $4 billion to influence just this year’s election.  

Lou

 

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