House Report Slams NHTSA Over GM Recall

A new report prepared by the U.S. Energy and Commerce Committee has concluded that NHTSA made “critical mistakes” in the GM ignition switch recall case.

“NHTSA had ample information to identify a potential safety defect as early as 2007,” says the report. Four key failures were identified as the leading causes of the undiagnosed safety issue which was allowed to “fester unresolved for over a decade.”

In 2007, a report from a Wisconsin State Trooper identified the faulty ignition switch as the reason the airbags did not deploy in a head-on collision involving a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt. “The agency failed to investigate or even explore the link between the air bags and ignition switch identified in the State Trooper’s report or agency-commissioned crash investigation following the fatal crash in Wisconsin,” says the report.

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In the following years, NHTSA commissioned three independent investigations looking into non-deployment of the frontal airbags in the Chevy Cobalt, but still no issue was found that warranted a recall. The report says that NHTSA was operating in “silos,” essentially blocking the sharing of information between departments.

Finally, the report says that a failure of NHTSA officials to have a fundamental understanding of how advanced air bag systems functioned played a major role in the missed signals.

“There are no simple solutions to the failures exposed by this recall. This was not the result of lack of data or specific information – both GM and NHTSA had ample information necessary to identify this defect. It was a failure to process, share and utilize that information within each entity that enabled this safety defect to persist,” concludes the report.

The report comes right before NHTSA’s acting administrator, David Friedman, testifies in front of a Senate subcommittee today on the agency’s role in the GM ignition switch recall.

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