General Motors Raises Ignition Switch Fatalities
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General Motors may soon fess up to more fatalities linked to faulty ignition switches in its small cars. The company submitted data to federal safety regulators outlining claims from the first quarter of 2014 for Chevrolet Cobalt and Saturn Ion vehicles that resulted in 17 deaths and 167 injuries, reports Automotive News.
GM has officially admitted to 13 deaths and 54 accidents with ignition switch failure over the past few months; however, federal regulators have claimed that the number of deaths related to the defective part may actually be higher, and it looks like the case.
While GM has not officially added to its count of ignition-switch related deaths publicly , the new claims do support the opinion of federal regulators. In fact, AN reports that GM’s compensation fund, which will begin accepting claims on August 1, will cover claims for “15 deaths and 136 injuries in Cobalts, 31 deaths and two injuries in Ions, and three deaths and 32 injuries in Chevrolet HHRs,” as well as an additional seven injuries related to the defect in Saturn Sky, Pontiac G5 and Pontiac Solstice vehicles.
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I would love to see the details of these accidents too. Odds are 3/4 of them had mitigating circumstances that contributed greatly to their demise just as the original totals.
You wouldn’t by chance be a member of the Westboro Baptist church, would you?
You are like a hemorrhoid that won’t go away.
Ok I challenge you to present your case here.
Where is it that some one who is Speeding, Drunk, On Drugs, Not using a seat belt not culpable in this case?
Even if the car stalls the car can still be steered, Stopped with full power brakes and even restarted with out stopping. The percentage of death risk is very low if the driver is in full control.
Now provide us how they hold no share in their own demise?
What part of personal responsibility do you not understand. I agree in corporate responsibility but it has to be balanced with personal too. Fair is fair.
As for Westboro I would have put them all in jail for harassment so the families could bury their family members in peace and honor.
By Chance you wouldn’t be some cheap hack for Anonymous/anti capitalist would you?
Attention,You my friend are malinformed. The HHR is Electric accessories.I for one dare you try driving one turn off ignition and nevotiate a 30° curve at 55 mph.in traffic on a 2 lane rd. For a woman ,just the feel of the steering locking down would sscare her as it did mine! She severely damaged the car and herself in a5foot drainage ditch aside the road. GM blew us off,replaced ignition switch And Wiped the Computer of all codes and history We had contacted Attorneys but, with Dealer wiping memory it was our word against theirs, And over 3000.00 for repairs. Out of pocket.
Well?
God Bless those that died and were injured and their families. I agree however, that unbelted, and/or under the influence of drugs or alcohol should have a slightly lower compensation, due to contributory negligence, than others who weren’t drunk, high or unbelted, since these could have contributed to lack of ability to correct the situation, and possibly avoid a fatal collision.
I recently found that European Auto Crash testing is done with belted test dummies only, apparently in America, we test unbelted, which I find unbelievable. An example of our Nanny state at work with no personal responsibility.
I lost the brake lines on my 2000 Silverado this winter ( a whole other story) going 20-25 mph on a sunny afternoon, and as an experienced, 40 year crash-free driver, (sober and just out of work), it was all I could do to steer into a snowbank to avoid the stopped traffic in front of me. I never even thought to use the emergency brake, it happened so quickly.
Had I made it up my usual route’s huge hill, the ride down into the neighboring town’s downhill stoplight with 5 feeder roads would have ended in disaster, to be sure. I turned around headed back to work and used neutral to roll up to stop signs as the high idle in the frigid temps was taking me too fast in drive.
Even a mature, sober and belted driver experiencing something for the first time, may not have a reaction time or thought process quick enough to solve a high speed physics problem, especially given these older, second hand cars were driven by young inexperienced drivers in many cases.
In any case there will be a percentage of people that just can’t react and have little options but it depends a lot of where they are at and just how they can respond.
In cases of excessive speed and impaired their chance of reacting to an good out come goes from 95% to 10% real fast.
If you are unbelted you decrease your odds of survival or injury even greater. Generally if you are belted in and in a sober state most driver can respond in a way that the odds are greatly in their favor that the outcome will be a good one.
Also I feel the press here over played this big time. While they continued to report on GM Jeep refused to repair fuel tanks in jeeps and then finally relented grudgingly . In that case there was 51 deaths documented but little was said about it.
Now to be fair to jeep I do not know all the cases and just what happened as in some of these cases I am sure there was some mitigating circumstances too.
Same on the Crown Vic fires where many police officers were burned to death as it was far more than the GM case but little was published on it.
I do not absolve GM of all wrong doing here but I do feel those who did not protect themselves with the installed seat belt and were operating under the influence should share in the blame of their demise. I also think the media should be taken to task as they are not reporting in a fair or unbiased manor. But then again they are not that way even in other topics.