The AP, reporting from various locations, noted that automakers tend to think and act globally in production and sales, but not when it comes to safety recalls, “in part because governments do not demand it.” However, the “consequences are sometimes deadly,” the piece said. The AP explored efforts by General Motors and other manufacturers to improve their responsiveness to their national governments’ warnings, although the story stressed the lack of international standards “for determining what’s unsafe and should be recalled, or how car owners should be notified.”
Takata replaces top brass in wake of recall scandals. The New York Times reported that Takata Corp. shuffled its executives this past Wednesday, “removing its president and consolidating control under its chairman, the grandson of the company’s founder,” due to the fact that 11 car companies have issued recalls of some 20 million cars with Takata-made airbags “that could rupture violently when deployed in an accident, shooting debris into the cabin.”
Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported that despite the huge number of recalls, “Takata resisted the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s demand to expand the safety campaign nationally beyond high-humidity areas.”
The AP, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today had similar coverage.
From the news release of the American Association for Justice.
