House panel: National safety agency mishandled GM recall

photo David Friedman, the acting head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration should have discovered General Motors' faulty ignition switches seven years before the company recalled 2.6 million cars to fix the deadly problem, a House committee majority charged Tuesday in a new report.

5 REPORT FINDINGSDETROIT - Republicans on the House Commerce Committee released a report Tuesday critical of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the government's top auto safety agency, and its handling of General Motors' delayed recall of 2.6 million cars with defective ignition switches. NHTSA was also the subject of a Senate subcommittee hearing later Tuesday.Here are the top five findings from the House report:• Seven-year gap: As early as 2007, NHTSA had information from multiple sources suggesting GM's ignition switches were slipping out of position, causing small cars to stall and turning off their air bags. Information reported by GM and individual crash investigations, including three reports commissioned by the agency itself, showed the link. But the agency declined to open an investigation because the number of consumer complaints didn't seem higher than peer vehicles.• Lack of knowledge: Starting in 2003, NHTSA required the installation of advanced air bags, which prevent injuries by controlling the force of deployment based on an occupant's size, seat position and other factors. But the equipment drained the battery more quickly, so the air bags weren't designed to work for more than a few seconds after the car was off. Even after crash reports suggested that air bags weren't deploying when GM cars stalled, safety investigators didn't explore the link. They assumed -- incorrectly -- that second-generation air bags would continue to work for a substantial amount of time even after the car was off.• Lack of training: Investigators have a hard time keeping up with current technology because of a limited training budget, the report says. The lead air bag investigator on the GM case didn't recall attending a paid training course in the last six to eight years. GM was one of a few manufacturers who provided NHTSA investigators with technical briefings, but regulators said they didn't always trust automakers to share relevant facts.• Silos: Like GM, NHTSA is a large organization with employees who aren't communicating with each other. Defect investigators have little interaction with staff responsible for safety testing. After the GM recall, the agency canvassed other offices and found a few employees who understood the relationship between the vehicle's power mode and its air bags, but none of those people were involved in the initial Cobalt reviews in 2007.• Data management: NHTSA collects a vast amount of data from consumers, automakers, outside investigators and others. But information doesn't flow well. The agency failed to track or identify similarities in three independent investigations it commissioned after Cobalt crashes. Investigators were also unaware of a service bulletin about faulty ignition switches GM had issued in 2005, even though GM submitted the bulletin to the agency.

WASHINGTON - The agency responsible for safety on the nation's roads was years late in detecting a deadly problem with General Motors cars and lacks the expertise to oversee increasingly complex vehicles, congressional Republicans charged in a report Tuesday.

The report by a House committee's GOP majority raised serious questions about the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's ability to keep the public safe, and came as the Senate convened a hearing on the safety agency's shortcomings.

Safety regulators should have discovered GM's faulty ignition switches seven years before the company recalled 2.6 million cars to fix the deadly problem, the report concluded.

It also said the agency didn't understand how air bags worked, lacked accountability and failed to share information internally.

"As vehicle functions and safety systems become increasingly complex and interconnected, NHTSA needs to keep pace with these rapid advancements in technology," the report said. "As evidenced by the GM recall, this may be a greater challenge than even NHTSA understands."

At least 19 people died in crashes caused by the faulty switches in GM small cars like the Chevrolet Cobalt. The company acknowledged knowing about the problem for at least a decade, but it didn't recall the cars until February. The delays left the problem on the roads, causing numerous crashes that resulted in deaths and injuries. Lawmakers have said they expect the death toll to rise to near 100.

NHTSA already has fined GM the maximum $35 million for failing to report information on the switches, but the committee found that many of the bureaucratic snafus that plagued GM also are present at NHTSA.

"While NHTSA now complains about GM's switch, it seems NHTSA was asleep at the switch too," Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., said in a statement.

NHTSA blamed GM for the delays and said many problems cited by the committee were fixed in a 2011 review. GM, the agency said, hid information by fixing switches without changing the part numbers, causing the number of complaints about the switches to decline and skewing data. "GM withheld information and hindered NHTSA's efforts every step of the way," NHTSA said.

The agency said it has a strong record of pursuing defects, influencing almost 1,300 recalls covering 95 million vehicles and parts in the last decade. NHTSA also said it's using sophisticated tools to search for defects and it has an improved complaint-tracking process. It's also discussing with Congress the need for more investigators.

NHTSA is working on how it can better understand how vehicle systems interact and more quickly discern safety defects, David Friedman, the agency's acting administrator, said in prepared testimony for the Senate commerce subcommittee. Friedman took over when administrator David Strickland resigned two months before the GM recalls began.

A key criticism in the House report was that NHTSA defect investigators didn't understand until earlier this year after GM began recalling cars that an ignition switch defect that could cause the vehicle's power to shut off or move to the "accessory" position while the car was moving could also prevent the airbag's from deploying.

"It is tragic that the evidence was staring NHTSA in the face and the agency didn't identify the warnings," Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in a statement. "NHTSA exists not just to process what the company finds, but to dig deeper. They failed."

NHTSA received consumer complaints about the GM switches for years, but didn't order a recall investigation. Besides disabling the airbags, the faulty switches could also shut down key systems such as power steering and power brakes, causing crashes.

The House committee said that a Wisconsin state trooper sent a report to NHTSA in 2007 about a crash that killed two teenage girls. The air bags failed to inflate, and the trooper traced the problem to the ignition switches. The agency also commissioned two outside investigations that reached the same conclusion in that crash and another one, yet no one at NHTSA connected the information.

NHTSA rejected a proposal to start an investigation, relying on a general consumer complaint trend that showed the GM cars didn't stand out from comparable vehicles in number of complaints or reported defects, the report said.

Other findings by the House committee majority:

• An updated 2007 report on the Wisconsin crash for NHTSA by Indiana University included a reference to a GM service bulletin to dealers telling them that the switches could unexpectedly shut off engines. Yet NHTSA investigators told the committee they didn't know about the bulletin until after the recall.

• NHTSA investigators didn't understand how advanced air bags worked, and instead based their assessment of GM's problems on outdated knowledge. "It was not until after GM announced a recall of these vehicles in February 2014 that NHTSA understood the connection between the ignition switch position and air bag deployment," the report said.

• Budget constraints have limited NHTSA's training. The lead air bag investigator assigned to the GM case didn't remember any paid training courses in the past six to eight years.

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