Documents reveal that regulator overruled investigator in 2007 over defective GM air bags

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration might be in the same boat along with General Motors Co over the events that might have called for an earlier recall of the automaker's vehicles. According to documents released in a probe into GM's ignition switch defect, a review panel of the agency in 2007 decided to overrule an investigator and came into a resolution that there was not enough evidence for them to launch a formal probe on the air bags of GM's Chevrolet Cobalt series, Bloomberg said.

Executive director Clarence Ditlow of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington said about one of the documents released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week, "Everything in this memo suggests they should have opened a defect investigation. The numbers are off the charts."

The US Congress and the Justice Department are currently investigating the series of events which led GM to stall a recall of 2059 million small cars until after more than ten years. The ignition switch in GM's small cars, including the Cobalt and the Saturn Ion series, reportedly shut off power when jarred, and deactivates air bags in the process. On April 2, the acting administrator of the NTHSA had told a US Senate panel that it did not recommend a probe on the cars in 2007 because the Cobalt and Ion did not stand out when compared to its peers. U.S. Transportation Department inspector general Calvin Scovel is also looking into the matter of whether the agency has conducted itself properly in its 2007 review, Bloomberg added.

Documents released by the House panel also revealed that the NHTSA received 29 complaints about failures of the Cobalt and Ion models' airbags beginning 2003 until 2006. The complaints included 25 crashes, which resulted to passenger injuries and four deaths, Bloomberg said. Moreover, the documents also indicated that the warranty claims that are airbag-related for the Cobalt in 2006 was over four times more than that for Honda Motor Co's Civic, Ford Motor Co's Focus and Toyota Motor Corp's Corolla.

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General Motors ignition defect recall, US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, General Motors Co

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