Category: Blog

A Large Insurer Warns of Recall Limitations

July, 2014

A large insurer looks at the problems of crash victims in recalls — from the viewpoint of money — not safety.

“Even when a serious car recall impacts your vehicle, there’s a 70% chance you won’t hear about it. In general, the auto manufacturers make a good effort to reach all owners of these vehicles. But sometimes a good effort just isn’t enough. People who moved, changed their phone number or simply bought their car from someone other than a major dealership may not be reachable during an active car recall. For these reasons, manufacturers typically only reach about 30% of car owners affected by a car recall.

This translates into a high risk for accidents—and it’s not just the drivers of recalled cars that are at risk. Other drivers on the road could be victims of an accident involving a car that has been recalled. As a driver of a car that has an active recall, it’s important to be properly insured to make sure that you are covered and have both collision coverage and liability coverage.”

The message:  What you don’t know may cost you money.  Buy insurance it may save you money.  

Source:  http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/07/prweb12007868.htm

“ABOUT COMPARENOW.COM Comparenow.com is a limited liability corporation headquartered in Richmond, VA. Majority owned by the Admiral Group plc, the UK’s second largest auto insurer and a member of the FTSE 100,comparenow.com offers car insurance comparison services for US consumers.”

But what about your life and the lives of others?

Imagine the world as it was when insurers and consumer groups worked together in the 1980’s to get airbags into cars.  

Imagine the America of 30 years and more than 1 million crash victims’ lives ago.  At that time, insurers and consumer groups joined forces to overturn the Reagan Administration’s NHTSA rescission of the airbag rule.  At the time when America had a Supreme court that voted 9 to 0 to find the Reagan rescission wrong and wrote that the auto industry had ”waged the regulatory equivalent of war against air bags for a decade.’‘

See http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/29/business/the-air-bag-goes-to-court.html

Besides the loss of 1 million American lives to crash injuries and about 4 million serious crash injuries since then — What has happened in the industry’s continued war against auto safety?  And against America?

Lou

GM Recall: More Defective Switches – No More Victims “Eligible” for Some Compensation

July, 2014

See GM Letter to NHTSA at

Nader Offers Remedies for GM Ignition Switch Scandal

July, 2014

In 2004, NHTSA published a report that found 

NY Times Video Gives Voice to Victims of GM Crashes

June, 2014

Under Joan Claybrook, I had the privilege to participate in a small way in research on the effects on families of crash deaths and serious injuries in the late 1970s.  That work was brought to an end under President Reagan’s anti regulatory programs that tried to kill airbags and did cripple NHTSA by cutting its staff by 33%.  The reduction of NHTSA staff by 300 workers in the 1982 period has not been restored to this day more than 30 years and more than 1 million American crash deaths later.   Seehttps://www.careforcrashvictims.com/effects-on-families.php

NY Times Examines Tragic Costs of Victims Injuries n GM Recall

June, 2014

The NY Times article also carries insights into Ken Feinberg’s task for GM as follows:

“His past work suggests that Mr. Feinberg is likely to find anyone who has been treated in the hospital for accidents they can prove involved a defective car eligible for compensation. As a first threshold, according to those familiar with Mr. Feinberg’s deliberations, anyone whose air bags deployed will not be eligible.

But the burden of proof is likely to be less onerous than what is required in a court of law. “What they will almost certainly do is set up some simple procedure run by folks in Feinberg’s office,” said Mr. Laycock, the law professor, who has followed Mr. Feinberg’s work over the years. “It will probably be a fairly objective checklist. Did you have one of these switches in your car? What are the accidents caused by ignition switch like? Was yours like that?

“The principal purpose of this type of fund is to greatly reduce litigations costs,” he explained. “They want it very simple, very inexpensive.””

Lou

No Sweat — NHTSA & Takata Strike Deadly Deal Behind Closed Doors – Obama Plays Golf

June, 2014

Today we read the following release from Clarence Ditlow, Executive Director of the Center for Auto Safety.NHTSA & Takata Strike Deadly Deal Behind Closed Doors To Limit Airbag Inflator Recall        “Sitting in air conditioned offices away from the sweltering humidity of Washington streets and away from the eyes of public scrutiny, NHTSA and Takata officials reached one of the strangest recall deals ever seen.  They agreed Takata could limit recall of airbag inflators that explode and send shrapnel into the occupant compartment to Florida, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and U.S. Virgin Islands.  The agreement totally ignores states such as Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and others with notoriously high relative humidities not to mention Washington DC and even Portland Oregon which is higher than Hawaii. Without explanation, the agreement relies on absolute humidity for which records are scanty and no data are provided by either NHTSA or Takata. When it comes to a defect so deadly as an airbag inflator that kills like a shrapnel bomb, the public deserves more than a private nod from NHTSA to Takata just like the agency gave GM on the ignition switch defect.” Statement of Clarence Ditlow Executive Director

GM Recalls: How GM Silenced a Whistle-Blower on Dangerous Defects

June, 2014

See also article on GM power  over the past decade athttps://www.careforcrashvictims.com/assets/CFCV-MonthlyReport-March2014-2%20.pdf