Tag: nhtsa

GM and NHTSA’s “Magic Formula”

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Tomorrow, the heads and NHTSA and GM will head into the House committee for a three-Bromo-seltzer morning on the topic of: What Did You Know and When Did You Know It?

We, at The Safety Record, are most interested in understanding why NHTSA declined to investigate the defective ignition modules in early model year Chevy Cobalts and other models, after two Special Crash Investigations, 29 complaints, four deaths and the considered opinion of Defects Assessment Division (DAD) Chief.

According to a briefing report prepared by Majority Staff of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, the decision point for the agency was the fall of 2007:

In September of that year, the DAD Chief “emailed other ODI officials and proposed an investigation of “frontal airbag nondeployment in the 2003-2006 Chevrolet Cobalt/Saturn Ion.” The Chief of the Defects Assessment Division went on to state that the “issue was promoted by a pattern of reported non-deployments in VOQ [Vehicle Owners’ Questionnaire] complaints that was first observed in early 2005. Since that time, [the Defects Assessment Division] has followed up on the complaints, enlisted the support of NCSA’s Special Crash Investigations (SCI) team, discussed the matter with GM, and received a related EWD Referral. Notwithstanding GM’s indications that they see no specific problem pattern, DAD perceives a pattern of non-deployments in these vehicles that does not exist in their peers.”

Two months later, an “ODI IE panel reviewed the proposal to open an investigation into non-deployment of airbags in 2003-2006 Cobalts and Ions. A PowerPoint presentation prepared by the DAD and dated November 17, 2007, states that its review was prompted by 29 Complaints, 4 fatal crashes, and 14 field reports. During a briefing with Committee staff, ODI officials explained that the panel did not identify any discernible trend and decided not to pursue a more formal investigation.”

The Safety Record has long observed that we can find no “discernible trend” in NHTSA’s investigation decisions. In a March 8, 2014 New York Times story on the GM debacle ODI Chief Frank Borris said that that calls are made by “really well-seasoned automotive engineers who leverage a lot of technology and lean on past precedent about when to open, when to close, and when to push for a recall. It’s no magic formula.”

Take out the word “magic,” and for once, we agree with Frank.

In February, Safety Research & Strategies submitted comments to NHTSA’s 2014-2018 Strategic Plan docket pointing out this perennial problem, well-documented in a series of Office of Inspector General reports going back to 2002:

– NHTSA uses an unstructured process for determining defects and inconsistent or nonexistent criteria for initiating defect investigations.

– NHTSA makes poor use of available data and refuses to consider information from sources outside the agency or the manufacturer.

– NHTSA focuses on defects that are easily and inexpensively remedied, frequently ignoring more complicated and dangerous defects. Continue reading →

Graco’s Perception Problem

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Leiana Marie Ramirez was three days shy of her second birthday, when she was burned alive, strapped in a Graco Nautilus child safety seat.

 On August 26, 2011, her mother, Samika Ramirez had been out running errands related to Leiana’ party – delivering cupcakes to her pre-school, shopping for Lieana’s birthday present. The pair was on the way home, southbound on Arroyo Seco Parkway in South Pasadena, when Samika felt her Nissan Altima swerve, and thinking she had a flat, regained control of her vehicle, stopped in the left-most lane and put on her flashers. The divided highway had no breakdown lane, just a narrow shoulder.

 Ramirez was about to call AAA, when another driver, who hadn’t noticed the stopped Altima, plowed into its rear end. The vehicle almost immediately caught fire. According to the police reports, Samika tried frantically to unbuckle her daughter, but could not release the harness. The flames engulfing her car were too intense, and onlookers pulled Samika Ramirez out of the car, while Leianna stayed behind. She witnessed her daughter’s death.

 More than a year later, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would open an investigation – still pending – that would eventually result in a recall of the Graco Nautilus and 17 other models for buckles that were so difficult to unlatch that some consumers complained to NHTSA that they had to cut the belt webbing to get their children out of the seat. And, from the beginning, Graco would concede that it was “keenly aware of the issue.” Indeed, it had collected more than 6,100 complaints about it.

 But Graco insisted that the inability to extract a child from the car seat was merely “a consumer frustration and a consumer experience that Graco has been working to improve.” To this date, Graco has not acknowledged that this defect led to a horrific death – not in its responses to the agency’s investigative information requests; not in its Part 573 Defect and Noncompliance Report and not in its Early Warning Reports. The company paid a big fine to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in 2005 for a long history of failing to report injuries and deaths. Even now, with the initial recall expanded and under a Special Order to answer all questions truthfully, Graco comforts its customers on its website:

 Graco can assure you there have been no reported injuries as a result of the harness buckles used on Graco car seats. We want to stress that our car seats are safe and effective in restraining children.  And, the safest way to transport a child is always in a car seat.

 NHTSA declined to comment on Graco’s stance, via a statement to The Safety Record:

 “Although Graco has submitted a defect notice in response to NHTSA’s recall request, our investigation remains open.  As such, the agency cannot discuss or comment at this time.”

 Attorney Christine Spagnoli, who represents the Ramirez family, says that Graco’s failure to acknowledge Leiana’s death will negatively affect the efficacy of the recall”

 “To me the issue is this: by putting on their website that there are no reported claims and by telling that to NHTSA, They are trying to dissuade people from getting new buckles,” says Spagnoli of Greene, Broillet & Wheeler, LLP. “This is a safety issue, and by saying something false to the public, they’re trying to save money, at the expense of kids getting hurt.”

 The Investigation

 The Preliminary Evaluation into Graco buckles opened in October 2012 with 25 complaints reported to NHTSA via their Vehicle Owners Questionnaire database, containing hypotheticals that echoed the Ramirez incident, like this one, filed with the agency in September 2012: Continue reading →

Toyota’s Billion Dollar Web

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Back in 2010, after Toyota announced that a federal grand jury in New York had subpoenaed the company on June 29 for documents regarding relay rod failures in Toyota truck models, we asked if the automaker would be the first to be prosecuted under the Transportation Recall Enhanced Accountability and Documentation Act (TREAD).

Well, right question, wrong defect.

Under the settlement with the Department of Justice announced today, Toyota is banged for $1.2 billion, and prosecution for committing one count of wire fraud is deferred for three years, for the lies it told about the floor mat entrapment and sticky pedal recalls. According to Toyota’s Statement of Facts, the automaker sought to limit its floor mat recalls, even though the entrapment hazard affected other models, and resisted the sticky pedal recall, even though Toyota had addressed the problem in Europe.

“This sends a mixed message,” says Sean Kane, president of Safety Research & Strategies. “On the one hand, a $1.2 billion fine is a very significant hit. But the government’s focus is only on the narrow areas of the floor mats and sticky pedals. The bulk of Toyota vehicles experiencing Unintended Acceleration problems were never recalled.  That billion dollars doesn’t do a thing for Toyota owners stuck with defective vehicles.”

The skeleton of this particular set of lies have been in the public domain for several years. In April 2010, when former Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced that the agency had imposed a $16.4 million fine on Toyota for failing to recall 2.3 million vehicles with defective accelerator pedals – then the largest civil penalty NHTSA had levied against an automaker – the Secretary failed to make public the documents laying out his rationale. In May 2011, NHTSA quietly posted the sternly worded demand letter that explained why Toyota got slapped.

To remind our readers, Toyota recalled the CTS supplied pedal in Europe in September 2009, but waited until January 2010 to recall the pedals in the U.S. However, on October 7, 2009, “a staff member of the Toyota Motor Corporation Product Planning and Management Division sent a copy of an Engineering Design Instruction describing the pedal remedy that was already implemented in Europe to someone at Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America, Inc. for the accelerator pedal of a RAV 4 manufactured in Canada. Two weeks later “a member of the TMC PPM inexplicably instructed a member of the TEMA PPM not to implement this Engineering Change Instruction. Furthermore, in November 2009, Toyota provided NHTSA with FTRs regarding sticking accelerator pedals on vehicles in the United States but not with information regarding Toyota’s extensive testing and determinations regarding the cause of the sticking accelerator pedals or an explanation of the significance of the FTRs,” the demand letter said. Continue reading →

That GM Loaner May Not be Safer

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Last week, General Motors attempted to pour oil on its troubled waters with an offer of free loaner cars for consumers awaiting a fix for the wandering ignition defect that is linked to at least 13 deaths. But, Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety (CARS) says that a loaner may be no safer – as long as automobile dealers are permitted to put customers in vehicles that may be under recall, but unremedied.

“We are very concerned for customers who go to GM dealers expecting a safer loaner car and that might not be what they get,” says Rosemary Shahan, CARS president.

This issue has been simmering on the Congressional back-burner since last May, after a California jury awarded $15 million to the parents of two sisters who died in an Enterprise Rent-A-Car 2004 PT Cruiser on October 7, 2004. The driver of the truck they hit testified that he could see smoke pouring from the PT Cruiser’s engine compartment just before it veered into the southbound lanes of Highway 101 in Monterey County, crashing into his 18-wheeled Freightliner tractor trailer. A month earlier, Chrysler had recalled 439,000 2001-2004 PT Cruiser and the 2005 PT Cruiser Convertible for a power steering hose that could rub against the transaxle differential cover, eventually resulting in a steering fluid leak and an underhood fire. Despite the recall notice, Enterprise had rented the PT Cruiser that crashed to three other customers before the Houcks. On the day of the crash, the PT Cruiser was the only vehicle available and Enterprise employees offered it to Raechel and Jacqueline Houck as a free upgrade.

Automobile dealers are prohibited from selling a new recalled vehicle that has not yet had the remedy implemented, but there is no such prohibition against renting or loaning out a recalled vehicle that has not had the fix, or selling a used unremedied vehicle.

The Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act of 2013 was sponsored by Democratic Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and supported by the car rental companies. The bill, S921, was filed in May and was unanimously passed by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, but it has advanced no further. CARS is lobbying for the bill and a similar one in the California legislature. SB 686 prohibits dealers from loaning, renting, leasing or otherwise transferring ownership of recalled used vehicles to consumers. But in both cases, the auto dealers have demanded a carve-out for loaners, because, as lobbyists testified they “have no way to know” if a vehicle has been recalled.

“The dealers and the manufacturers are blocking it and can’t even get out of the Senate,” Shahan said. “They’ve testified that they don’t want to pay for the down time, because a recalled vehicle could be out for weeks. They don’t want to lose the revenue, they’d rather put their customers at risk.” Continue reading →

Don’t Settle, NHTSA

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Yesterday, the agency sent General Motors an extraordinary 27-page Special Order compelling the automaker to answer 107 questions about an ignition defect in the 2005-2007 Chevy Cobalt and six other models that claimed at least 13 lives and injured at least 31.

Retired NHTSA senior enforcement lawyer Alan Kam said that he’d never seen anything like it.

We are encouraged by NHTSA’s aggressive and swift action, and we are hoping and wishing and praying for actual enforcement follow-through that benefits and protects consumers, rather than merely burnishes the agency’s image.

We all know – including GM – that a big, fat fine is in their future for failing to launch a recall within five days of discovering a defect, as Marietta, Ga. attorney Lance Cooper found out. Cooper obtained internal documents during the discovery phase of a lawsuit on behalf of the family of the late Brooke Melton, showing that GM engineers discovered in 2004 that the ignition of the 2005 Cobalt could wander from the run to off or accessory position while the vehicle is underway.  Continue reading →

GM Folds, Where’s the Fine?

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On the First Day, attorney Lance Cooper called GM out on its recall of the 2005-2007 Chevy Cobalt and Pontiac G5 for an ignition switch problem that, the automaker announced, was linked to six deaths.

Cooper had represented the family of 29-year-old Brooke Melton, who died in 2010 when the ignition module of her 2005 Cobalt slipped into the accessory position as she drove along Highway 92 in Paulding County, Ga. Melton’s Cobalt skidded into another vehicle, and Melton died of her injuries in the crash. Cooper, of the Marietta, Ga.-based Cooper Law Firm, revealed that GM knew about the wandering ignition switch problem since before it sold the vehicle – during 2004 production testing. Based on the documents GM turned over during discovery, Cooper petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to open a Timeliness Query, charging that GM had delayed the recall for an unconscionable length of time, and neglected to include all affected vehicles in the recall.

“GM continues to they continue to try and spin this story,” says Cooper. “Unfortunately, given the ugly facts it’s not going to work.”

And on the Second Day, the Press said: Let There Be Light Upon this Defect. Jim Healey and Fred Meier of USAToday broke the story that GM’s knowledge actually went back 10 years. Others followed, the New York Times, the Detroit News, the LA Times, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera – and The Safety Record Blog – natch.  

And on the Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Days, the Facts Created a Storm of Sh-t.

It turned out that GM did a recall end-run by issuing Technical Service Bulletins describing this problem in 2005 and 2006.

It turned out that NHTSA had noted the problem the following year in a Special Crash Investigation. In 2007, the Indiana Transportation Research Center probed an October 2006 fatal crash involving an airbag non-deployment in a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt. The investigation was prompted by questions surrounding the occupant sensing system and the airbag non-deployment, but the investigators quickly zeroed in on the ignition switch problem. The EDR readout showed that the ignition was in the accessory position at the time of the crash and the SCI investigators directly linked this to the 2006 version of the ignition switch TSB, which covered seven affected GM models. In fact, the only real root-cause analysis in the report surrounds the failure of the ignition switch.

And it turned out the GM tried to hide this history by filing a Part 573 Defect and Noncompliance Notice in which the chronology of significant events leading up to the decision to recall was essentially absent – despite acknowledging six deaths in its recall press release.

And on the Seventh Day, GM was “deeply sorry.” Less than a week after the acid drip, drip, drip of negative stories, GM found seven more deaths tied to the defect, and expanded the recall to include all of the affected models – 1.6 million vehicles. And Lo! A miracle – GM filed an amended Part 573, with an actual detailed chronology.

Here are some highlights:

In 2004:  Discovered the problem, but decided not to do anything.

“Engineers believed that low key cylinder torque effort was an issue and considered a number of potential solutions. After consideration of the lead time required, cost, and effectiveness of each of these solutions, the PRTS [Problem Resolution Tracking System inquiry] was closed with no action.”

In 2005: Got complaints, identified a solution, still didn’t do anything.

“GM employees received new field reports of Cobalts losing engine power, including instances in which the key moved out of the “run” position when a driver inadvertently contacted the key or steering column. Further PRTS’ s were opened to re-assess this issue. During the course of a PRTS opened in May 2005, an engineer proposed that GM redesign the key head from a ‘slotted’ to a ‘hole’ configuration. That proposal was initially approved, but later cancelled.”

GM eventually issued the TSBs, and decided that everything was okay, because “the car’s steering and braking systems remained operational even after a loss of engine power, and the car’s engine could be restarted by shifting the car into either neutral or park.”

In 2006: Changed the key hole design. Still getting complaints

In 2007: NHTSA tells GM about the Special Crash Investigation and the two deaths. GM starts tracking crashes of frontal impacts with no airbag deployment – learns of four in which the ignition was in the accessory position at the time of the crash. 

In 2009: GM changes the top of the key from a slot design to a hole design, and decides that the real problem is heavy key chains dragging the ignition out of position. Now GM is up to seven crashes in which the ignition was in the accessory position at the time of the crash. 

In 2010: The Cobalt is no more.

In 2011: GM’s legal department teams up with the Field Performance Assessment  and Product Investigations guys to finally investigate “a group of crashes in which airbags in 2005-2007 model year Chevrolet Cobalts and a 2007 Pontiac G5 had not deployed during frontal impacts.”

In 2012: More investigations – inconclusive results.

In 2013: GM discovered that “ignition switches in early-model Cobalts did not meet GM’s torque specification; changes had been made to the ignition switch’s detent plunger and spring several years after the start of production; and those changes most likely explained the variation from GM’s specifications for torque performance observed in the original switches installed in 2007 and earlier model year vehicles.”

GM parses supplier records and finds that changes had been made to the detent plunger and spring late in the 2006 calendar year, increasing “the switch’s torque performance:”

 Testing and analysis further determined that whether a key moves from the “run” to “accessory” position and how that key movement affects airbag deployment depends on a number of factors, including: vehicle steering inputs and path of travel immediately before key movement; the weight and load on the key ring immediately before key movement; whether the “installed ignition switch meets the torque specifications that GM provided to its supplier; and the timing of the movement of the key out of the “run” position relative to the activation of the airbag’s sensing algorithm of the crash event.

GM decides to recall.

Cooper doubts that this new chronology can put the matter to rest, and he renewed his call for a Timeliness Query. It’s doubtful, for example, that a supplier unilaterally changed a switch design to fix a defect, without someone at GM knowing about it and approving it.

“There’s no doubt that they knew about the 13 fatalities when they announced the first recall,” Cooper adds. “I believe that because of what we found in discovery, and because we filed the TQ, GM was pressured to announce this recall — although I still do not believe they have disclosed the whole story. There will be more [fatal crashes] that come out and there will be those cases that never come to light, because they were never investigated.”

Nonetheless, the company president said in yesterday’s USAToday:

“The chronology shows that the process employed to examine this phenomenon was not as robust as it should have been,” said GM North America President Alan Batey. “Today’s GM is committed to doing business differently and better. We will take an unflinching look at what happened and apply lessons learned here to improve going forward.”

Batey said, “We are deeply sorry and we are working to address this issue as quickly as we can.”

So, will NHTSA flinch in its response?  The agency let GM slide in 2007. The agency let them slide again in 2014, when they allowed GM to issue a partial recall and permitted the automaker to submit a Part 573 with no chronology to speak of. Now it’s time to either pull the trigger on Cooper’s TQ request – this chronology still has holes – like: when did they learn of these 13 deaths? Regulators, pull out your civil penalty calculator, and get adding.

Ten years. Thirteen deaths. “Deeply sorry” doesn’t cut it.

The Toyota Owners Left Holding the Bag

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John Biello was not ready for the cruise control malfunction that sent his 2009 Tacoma careening down an exit ramp, then skidding into a rollover last June. But Tuesday, when he and his wife Diane appeared before the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Division of Insurance Board of Appeals to fight an automatic rate increase mandated by state law, Biello was fully prepared to educate the hearing officer about Unintended Acceleration problems in Toyotas.

As the great tide of cash washes from Toyota into the pockets of the U.S. government, attorneys, research institutions and some death and injury victims to settle fines and claims without an admission that the automaker’s electronic throttle control system is defective, owners like John and Diane Biello represent those left to deal with Toyota’s mistakes on their own. The Rehoboth, Massachusetts couple had no counsel, just a compelling account and a binder of public documents showing that Toyota Unintended Acceleration problems continue today and that juries and technical experts recognize what the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has not: Toyota’s badly designed electronic architecture can cause UA.

“I knew that there had been this unintended acceleration problem. I had read about it a couple of years ago,” John Biello says. “But I thought it pretty much done. I thought the problem was fixed and I didn’t really think my vehicle was involved because I got no Unintended Acceleration recall notices.” Continue reading →

NHTSA Proposes Side Impact Protection for Children

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With just six months to go before a Final Rule is due to be published, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released its proposal to add side impact testing to the child seat safety standard for children up to 40 pounds.

To the uninformed, the NPRM reads like the history of an agency moving forward expeditiously toward a test that will lead the way for global child safety standards. And it is true that the proposed sled test adds a new deformable door component. But a more complete dive into the history of side-impact crashes and protection for child shows that this innovation should have been an amendment to an existing side impact test for child safety seats. This proposal is waaaaay late, and the result of not one—but two—Congressional mandates, about a dozen years apart.

Here’s the truth: (And you can measure it by policy, by regulation, by research, by public engagement – it all comes out the same.) Protecting children in crashes has never been a priority for the agency, nor for the automakers. That’s how you get the first side-impact compliance test for child safety seats in 2014.

Nonetheless, some child seat safety experts are applauding the effort.

“I’m very excited that this is finally being implemented,” said Gary Whitman, Vice President, Research and Development at ARCCA Inc, and an expert in occupant crash safety systems who has tested hundreds of child seats and collaborated with NHTSA, the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Academy of Pediatric Child Injury Prevention, National SAFE KIDS Campaign, and the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania in child restraint research. “It’s long overdue and it’s a shame that it required an act of Congress.”

At the same time, Whitman and biomechanical expert Salena Zellers Schmidtke agree that the proposal has some serious deficits – it only protects children up to 40 pounds, and makes questionable assumptions about the efficacy of side air curtains for children in booster seats in a side impact crash. Continue reading →

Burning Questions: Why Did NHTSA Let Chrysler Slide?

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Last Friday, David Shepardson of the Detroit News announced for NHTSA what many knew was coming: the 1993-2004 Grand Cherokee and 2002 – 2007 Jeep Liberty rear-impact fuel-fed fires investigation is over. No recall. The ornamental trailer hitch will stand as a symbolic gesture of a remedy.

This one has all the hallmarks of what has become an Office of Defects Investigation classic: design defect too difficult/costly to correct? Check. Bogus, untested remedy? Check. Appearance of action? Check.

You could tell that NHTSA was real proud of its work by the timing of the disclosure: 5 p.m. on a Friday before a holiday weekend. Classic public relations bury-the-news-and-hope-nobody-notices move. Release the information, and head home for the holidays. Classic and classy!

“Words cannot describe how disappointed I am in NHTSA and US DOT in general,” says Jenelle Embrey, the fiery Linden, Virginia woman who teamed up with the Center for Auto Safety to advocate for a recall on the older model Jeeps with the fuel tank aft of the rear axle design. Embrey launched her own crusade after witnessing the deaths of 18-year-old Acoye Breckenridge and the driver Heather Lee Santor in an October 2012 crash. Embrey’s dad, Harry Hamilton, managed to save one occupant of Jeep Grand Cherokee before it exploded. Continue reading →

Toyota Lawsuits Wrapped?

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Toyota is looking to close out its unintended acceleration crisis, with a speedy resolution to the remaining lawsuits out there. According to news reports, the automaker has been inspired by the Bookout verdict to settle a whole passel of UA lawsuits. Last month, for example, Toyota came to terms with Opal Gay Vance, a West Virginia woman who injured her neck and back, when her 2010 Camry suddenly accelerated, striking a trailer. The confidential settlement forestalled a trial set to begin on Jan. 21. In California, orders from judges in the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana and Los Angeles Superior Court opened the door to settlements in nearly 300 death and injury plaintiffs’ cases.

“We’re glad to see that Toyota has decided to approach this in a systematic and forthright way, and we look forward to seeing most of the pending claims settled in early 2014,” says attorney Donald Slavik of Robinson, Calcagnie, Robinson, Shapiro, Davis Inc. of Newport Beach, CA.

The race to empty the court dockets should not be confused with a conclusion to Toyota’s UA technical problems, which continue unabated. SRS took a stroll through the Vehicle Owners Questionnaire database, looking for 2013 UA complaints and found more than 300. They cover all of the classic scenarios, like this one:

“I backed my 2006 Toyota Corolla into a friend’s driveway, and then put the car into drive to straighten it a bit. The car suddenly without warning shot across the street (perhaps at 45-50 mph), went over a 6″ high cement retaining curbing, and across a lawn into another driveway. All the while I had my foot firmly on the brake (not the gas pedal). I swerved the wheel to avoid hitting a telephone pole, and the house. I finally got the car into neutral, and at last the brakes engaged, and I was able to stop the car avoiding a pick-up truck in the driveway and a tree. During this entire time the engine was loudly revving. Other than 3 shredded tires and 2 ruined rims, the car seems to be intact. I have contacted Toyota and hope for a successful resolution. The service manager at the dealership where this vehicle was purchased, however, said that since it is not under recall there is nothing they can do. Meanwhile I will be fearful every time I get behind the wheel, which I have yet to do!    3 new tires and 2 new rims is a small price to pay – it could have been my life! Had cars been passing by on this normally busy street, or children walking on the sidewalk on their way home from school – other lives as well could have been taken. This was a terrifying event! Judging from all of the similar stories written regarding this make, model and year, Toyota needs to do a recall to solve this problem once and for all.” (ODI 10496026) Continue reading →