THE VETERAN’S ADMINISTRATION AND MOTOR VEHICLE
SAFETY RECALLS
By Maj. Gen. Jerry R. Curry,
(Ret'd)
CurryforAmerica.com
Recently General Motors Co. agreed to pay a $35
million fine to the federal government to settle a
U.S. Auto-Safety investigation which concluded that
GM had failed to notify the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration (NHTSA), within five working
days as required by law, of its having discovered a
safety defect in some of GM’s vehicles. Unlike as
with the Veterans Administration, it would appear
that NHTSA is fulfilling its role of motor vehicle
safety hound dog, sniffing out safety defects and
protecting the lives of the American people on the
nation’s roads and highways.
But
not so fast, One of the things I learned during my
three years as NHTSA Administrator under President
Bush senior is that NHTSA’s Office of Defect
Investigations is supposed to notify the motor
vehicle manufacturers when a detect has been
detected and then work with the manufacturer to
decide how and when the repairs can be carried out.
That is, the manufacturer doesn’t tell the
government that a motor vehicle defect has been
discovered; the government tells the manufacturer,
and they jointly come up with an agreed upon
procedure to fix it and save American lives on our
highways.
It is
NHTSA’s job to constantly monitor the state of motor
vehicle safety on the nation’s roads and highways.
So by law the State Police immediately report to
NHTSA all serious accidents, especially those that
result in deaths. NHTSA screens and analyzes these
reports plus reports of previous investigations,
accidents, injuries, fatalities and law suits
concerning the alleged defect, including frequency
and severity.
It
pours over information from letters, phone calls,
consumer groups, state and local governments,
inquiries from members of Congress plus any previous
requests for information on the subject of the
possible defect. NHTSA also scans manufacturers’
service and technical bulletins for any signs of a
suspected defect.
Additionally, the public is quite active in
providing information to NHTSA through the NHTSA
auto safety hotline. It isn’t unusual for NHTSA to
receive tens of thousands of phone calls a month
seeking information on or reporting on motor vehicle
suspected defects.
Whenever these sources of information indicate that
there is a possible adverse safety trend or motor
vehicle defect, NHTSA initiates an immediate and in
depth investigation to determine whether or not the
possible defect poses an unreasonable risk to the
public or constitutes a safety defect. If a motor
vehicle safety defect is found to actually exist,
unlike what happens in the Veterans Administration,
NHTSA is required by law to mandate a safety recall
and to see to it that the manufacturer corrects the
safety defect immediately, and at no cost to the
vehicle owner.
Once
when I was NHTSA Administrator, GM was trying to
drag its feet on fixing a safety defect. I
immediately called a meeting and GM’s engineers,
technicians and lawyers came to my office and tried
to talk me out of their having to initiate a motor
vehicle safety recall. I asked which of them would
like to volunteer to go to jail, because I had
already talked to the Department of Justice and,
depending on the outcome of the meeting, DOJ was
prepared to file criminal charges against G.M.
Miracle of miracles, we were able to reach agreement
in about half an hour. That’s the last time a motor
vehicle manufacturer complained to me about their
being asked to initiate a motor vehicle safety
recall.
Citizen safety is a constant balancing act. If the
manufacturer is given the authority to decide when a
motor vehicle traffic safety defect exists, few
would be found. It is the government’s
responsibility to safeguard our citizens not a
manufacturer headquartered in the city of Detroit.
As of
now, no one seems to know who is responsible for the
safety of the driving public, just as no one seems
to know who in the VA is responsible for the lives
being lost to the medical bureaucracy’s
unintentional murder boards.