The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee has announced it will continue its investigation into General Motors‘ handling of its ignition switch recall with a second hearing set for July 17, Reuters reports.
GM CEO Mary Barra has so far made two appearances in front of Congress and another in front of the Senate in regards to the faulty ignition switch found in millions of the company’s cars and linked to at least 16 fatal car accidents. The Senate panel and the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee are attempting to find out why it took GM more than a decade to recall cars with the potentially fatal defect.
The Senate Commerce Committee has yet to announce who will testify at the second hearing. GM also faces probes from Congress and the Justice Department and is facing several lawsuits from plaintiffs who believe they should be compensated because their cars lost value due to the defect.
GM has vowed to take safety flaws and defects more seriously in the future and outlined a broad compensation plan earlier this week that will payout the families of victims who died and those that were injured in accidents caused by the switch.
Comments
Can someone just put up a beating a dead horse icon?
Wow, I don’t recall Toyota being brought before the Senate once yet alone 3 times and 83 people died in their debacle over the acceleration issue.
Goes to show the Senate would rather slaughter a North American icon than hold an import company responsible for 6 times the number of deaths.
People can say its because GM knew about the issue and did nothing. But Toyota knew about their issue for a few years prior and they did two different fixes (after being forced to by NHTSA) for the issue and never fixed it because it is a computer issue and they can’t find the problem. It got swept under the rug.
Another reason the Senate is a useless part of government.
What about Jeep and the claimed 51 deaths due to the fuel tanks, They refuse to recall them for a long time even admitting they knew about it. Yet where is their series of hearings?
Where is their series of internet stories not telling the full tale?
What about GM withholding information (meaning, lying) – after hiring their own, favorable investigator to “get to the bottom of the problem”?
It’s one thing to simply be inept and arrogant (GM has accomplished this, in spades). But committing fraud, and accessing federal bankruptcy protection on the basis of misinformation – those are federal criminal charges, not civil charges. And firing an engineer isn’t going to be a satisfactory solution for the Feds, I imagine.