Posted on 05/19/2015 7:12:11 AM PDT by Citizen Zed
It’s been a long, rough road for the General Motors ignition-switch recall saga. Early GM estimates of deaths caused by the faulty ignition switches pale in comparison to where the number stands today.
But as The Detroit Free Press reports, that number has reached 104 per Kenneth Feinberg, overseeing the GM compensation fund. That number is up four from this time last week, where it stood at 100.
Feinberg’s office reports there are 495 cases left to review, with 26 of them involving loss of life, making it possible for that number to scale higher through the summer months. The other 469 cases deal with serious injury, including brain damage, loss of a limb or serious burns, and less severe injuries.
Still, no party has refused the settlement offered by the compensation fund, rightfully waving their right to sue General Motors over the ignition switch issue.
General Motors has estimated after all applications are reviewed the settlement costs will tally up around $550 million.
I’m guessing since they [GM and Obama] bent the GM premium bond holders over the table and violated them with 10 cents on the dollar, they’re thinking about sic’ing their lawyers on them to make them liable for damages to be paid.
How? Statistics.
That is still way better than five nines safe.
This is political. I say that as a strong hater of GM.
cars better 2009 or later, otherwise, SOL.
>>This is political<<
Could be, at least partially. I work for a fortune 500. Over the last couple of decades, particularly the last decade, bean counters/corp. execs have been driving relentlessly to take every penny to the bottom line.
In that I mean, cost cutting is everything, especially in an economic environment where profits are projected downward.
Far too many corporations go a lil too far with cost cutting and realize field failures as a result. In GM’s case, it would have cost them oodles less to place a quality part costing a few pennies more in their products than to incur the cost of recalls/litigation/fines.
They’ll figger it out one day. Ya get what’cha pay for.
I can vaguely recall some vehicles from the 40s and 50s with push-button ignitions on the dash.
I noticed many of the new vehicles have push-button ignitions now.
How long before we return to the foot-activated push-button starter in the floorboard?
Every purchase of an American car is a cash contribution to the democrat party - through UAW donations
...place a quality part costing a few pennies more ...
But the bottom line is that many parts of a car are a potential weak point, and what I notice is not how many were killed, but how many used the exact same part, over and over, and DID NOT have the same problem.
I really do see this as a witch hunt, like the Toyota sticking throttle.
The wife and I were car shopping recently and against my better judgment she talked me into visiting a gm dealership to look at suvs. While there my wife asked the salesman about all the recalls and his reply was, and this is the Gods honest truth, he said, “well, there just safety recalls”. JUST SAFETY RECALLS...........Unbelievable. We have since purchased a new vehicle but needless to say it was not a gubmint motors brand.
>>I really do see this as a witch hunt, like the Toyota sticking throttle.<<
Pennies do add up, but just as a recent multi-million dollar field failure in my industry....it was mandated to use a cheaper component rated for a lower thermal threshold...it failed...it failed to the tune of millions. For the penny we’d saved on the higher threshold, the company could have avoided recalls, customer loyalty and future orders. Just sayin.
As far as the Toyota sticking throttle. I actually witnessed a Toyota failure. The vehicle was totally out of control. Luckily, the driver was able to vear the vehile away from traffic. Taking out communication boxes and other obsticles, he finally got the vehicle to come to a halt. Pretty dangerous. Just think if the failure was to occur in a school zone with kiddos crossin the street. Witch hunt? Maybe, but there are a thousand scenarios that could cost life and limb.
A few pennies could make all the difference in the world...in many cases. My motto...do it right the first time and you won’t have to face the consequences.
Pennies do add up, but just as a recent multi-million dollar field failure in my industry....it was mandated to use a cheaper component rated for a lower thermal threshold...it failed...it failed to the tune of millions. For the penny we’d saved on the higher threshold, the company could have avoided recalls, customer loyalty and future orders. Just sayin.
But human beings are not perfect. Sometimes they choose correctly and sometimes they choose poorly. However, at some point a company can be guilty of reckless endangerment if they seem to always (or usually) err on the side of sacrificing safety. And sometimes they can kill their own company when saving a few cents costs them millions.
It’s also a fact that companies will reduce costs to a “sweet spot” of least lives lost for the minimum cost. i.e. they know their decision will cost “X” lives.
But, then, if they threw it all out and just made cars as safe as possible, nobody would be able to afford to buy one.
You want to really reduce fatalities: Make it actually DIFFICULT to get a license. It should take more than fogging a mirror.
Watch those youtube crash compilations some time. Very instructive.
As far as the Toyota sticking throttle. I actually witnessed a Toyota failure. The vehicle was totally out of control.
Well, I am assuming the throttle stuck open on the guy. He flew past me and the look on his face was terror.
Saw him in traffic behind me. His vehicle was lunging forward several times. To avoid hitting another motorist in traffic, he steered the vehicle over the curb and blazed down the grassy area along to roadway. Smashing into poles, utility boxes and so forth just pass my location.
As he passed me I looked over and watched him a few feet away from me maneuvering to stop the vehicle. Middle aged guy with a shirt and tie. Not sure if it was the impacts that stopped him or he threw the vehicle in neutral/park. Pretty intense.
>>But human beings are not perfect. Sometimes they choose correctly and sometimes they choose poorly<<
I get that. No one is perfect, but in my field we generate mountains of data in which to analyze. This particular decision was not at the engineering level.
We all scratched our heads at the thought of downgrading a component that would have operated right at thermal threshold...it cracked. Oopsies.
Ah, Government Motors.
Problem is that cars are actually complicated devices. I actually had a friend turn off the key in my vega while going 80 mph around a curve on a two lane highway in eastern washington when I was 19 (1973).
He forgot that it locked the steering wheel.
The car started slowly veering to the guardrail on the right.
Fortunately I had the presence of mind to not panic and just slam on the brakes. I moved the steering wheel to where there was no pressure on the locking mechanism and turned the key back on. I then brought the car back into the lane where it belonged. Speed never dropped below 70.
I’ve also had a floor mat get stuck under my gas pedal, “locking” the gas pedal down. But I just reached down and moved the floor mat.
Thing is, just as not everyone should have a motorcycle endorsement on their licenses, not everyone should have a drives license. Automobiles are not perfect. NOTHING man-made is perfect. And one reason is that it is prohibitively expensive. We either get flawed equipment or we get no equipment at all.
This needs to be considered.
The main problem is we have people without either the skill, or the aptitude to drive cars, driving cars.
However, my perspective is skewed. I drive 160 miles round trip to work every day and LOVE it. I also drift every day.
But I’m blessed with an aptitude for it. It’s why I enjoy it.
I remember my father telling me, when I was in JR high, that an assembly line will work as fast as possible until something breaks due to the speed. They then beef up that part and speed it up and go even faster and then something else breaks, and so-forth.
It was his over-simplification of one way things are improved.
Regarding this switch thing, my use of the phrase “five nines” was code for “highest reasonable quality”.
We strive for high quality rather than perfection. And when a flaw is discovered, we modify accordingly.
I also notice I have a bias when it comes to flaws in cars. If it is something completely out of my control, I tend to come down more hard on the company. E.g. if it is a flaw taht causes the front wheel assembly to fall off, making driver skill irrelevant, I consider it a MAJOR flaw. If it causes the throttle to stick, but I can turn the key halfway off to kill the engine, I see it as less important. It may break, but I can mitigate the risk via my human brain.
I see this switch thing as the latter and a good reason to not attach a bunch of sh** to my key ring. You should not do that for a bunch of reasons. This is one of them.
Good points. I would just say before halting the beating of that dead ol horse.
Some drivers are more skilled than others. When a throttle sticks and like the fella I described handled it without loss of life...it’s a chalk it up experience.
When a woman with kids in the back is suddenly faced with a situation like described and it places their lives in danger...it really kinda passes the less important test.
Good debate...thanx.
I agree. Excellent debate.
I have to confess that I used to watch a LOT of those “crash compilation” youtube videos. My take on this whole thing is that the core problem is that it is way too easy to get a drivers license. I think we should adopt something like the German model.
And with modern driving computer games, there is no reason why they could not create a very realistic driving simulator with everything from bad drivers pulling out in front of you and mechanical failure.
i.e. the weak link in most cars is the driver. We really could fix that a LOT.
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