The Detroit News reports that Sens. Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal are calling on the NHTSA to engage in “comprehensive reporting on each death or injury incident that is reportable to the agency.” They wrote to NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind, “It is time to recall our defective early warning reporting system and issue new rules to detect fatal defects.” In January, NHTSA” fined Honda Motor Co. $70 million for failing to disclose more than 1,700 reports of deaths, injuries and other ‘early warning’ over more than a decade” the article reports. “We’re talking about 11 years — 11 years of information we did not have — and it is egregious,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in January. “Good intentions don’t help the automaker,” Foxx said, adding, “We have to continue to do better on our end but we sure want to send a signal very clearly to the industry that they have an end to this responsibility to take on as well.”
The Hill reports that the two senators’ letter came also in response to “alleged violations of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act by Fiat Chrysler,” the NHTSA fining the company $105 million “for allegedly failing to properly notify drivers, car dealerships and federal regulators about recalls, as required by a 1966 law.” Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Ed Markey in their letter to Rosekind wrote, “Recently, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) was found to have violated the Motor Vehicle Safety Act in the way it executed the 23 vehicle safety recalls covering more than 11 defective vehicles.” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in July when the automaker was fined, “Today’s action holds Fiat Chrysler accountable for its past failures, pushes them to get unsafe vehicles repaired or off the roads and takes concrete steps to keep Americans safer going forward.” He continued, “This civil penalty puts manufacturers on notice that the Department will act when they do not take their obligations to repair safety defects seriously.”
From the news release of the American Association for Justice.
