Free Republic

DETROIT — In a notable victory for General Motors, a lawsuit that helped spur the biggest safety crisis in the company’s history has been withdrawn in exchange for a settlement from its compensation program, according to two people briefed on the agreement. The lawsuit was the second brought by the family of a Georgia woman, Brooke Melton, who died in 2010 in a car with a faulty ignition switch that has now been linked to at least 64 deaths. For G.M., the agreement removes the significant legal threat of senior officials, including Mary T. Barra, the automaker’s chief executive, being...

(Reuters) - At least 74 people have died in General Motors cars in accidents with some key similarities to those that GM has linked to 13 deaths involving defective ignition switches, a Reuters analysis of government fatal-crash data has determined. Such accidents also occurred at a higher rate in the GM cars than in top competitors’ models, the analysis showed. Reuters searched the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), a national database of crash information submitted by local law-enforcement agencies, for single-car frontal collisions where no front air bags deployed and the driver or front-seat passenger was killed. The news agency...

General Motors recently recalled close to a million vehicles for a deadly problem that resulted in six deaths. The models involved were Chevy Cobalts and Pontiac G5s from the 2005 through 2007 model years. The question is, why did NHTSA and GM wait so long to recall vehicles with a dangerous defect when the problems surfaced years ago? Scouring the internet reveals many reported stalling incidents for the models in question. My particular Google search went back to 2009 and unearthed disturbing evidence that GM did not properly address issues with faulty vehicles. While the vehicles were manufactured by...