GM Settles With Government Over Switch Defect Cover Up

[Gorehamj]

John Goreham
Contributing Writer, GM-Trucks.com
9/17/2015

General Motors has cleared one of the major hurdles it faces with regard to the cover up of unsafe ignition switches. A settlement reached with the Justice Department has three main highlights. First, GM has admitted to failing to disclose a defect that could lead to deaths. Furthermore, the company admitted that it mislead consumers about the safety defect.

 

Second, Nobody at General Motors will be charged with a crime. Like the similar Toyota settlement, the charges will be deferred. GM simply has to not do this type of thing again, and nobody will be held responsible. According to AP, the crimes its employees could have been charged with are "... wire fraud and scheming to conceal material facts from a government regulator."

 

Last, GM will pay $900 million to the U.S. government in a penalty about 30% lower than that which Toyota paid. The penalty represents less than 2% of the tax payment deferrals the company was allowed to keep as part of its 2009 bankruptcy and less than a tenth of the direct cost of the bailout paid for by the U.S. taxpayers.

[Chevor]

I don't understand your comparison to Toyota. A stall condition is completely opposite of a runaway.

 

I don't like the government fine. This comes down to the operator of the defective vehicles and the lack of basic car knowledge and what to do in an emergency.

[Gorehamj]

You bring up two good points. The comparison to Toyota is not about the details of the defect, but rather that both Toyota and GM were going to have individual employees indicted on felony charges of obstruction (my words) after a safety recall was mismanaged. Both companies admitted to covering up a safety defect that the government felt resulted in deaths. Both have received the largest fines ever, both had the criminal charges put on hold, to be later dismissed, pending a show of good faith going forward.

- On the separate topic of the ins and outs of the ignition switch defect, I felt the same way you did until I read into it extensively. Although it would seem one could control a vehicle that shuts off, the investigators from GM found that not only was steering impacted in a way that operators would not expect and be able to react to, airbags did not deploy in crashes. Some of the GM crashes in which the car was "off" and in which the airbags did not deploy were fatalities. I'm not saying you are wrong. Just sharing the reasons that GM eventually decided to pay those parties affected by the crashes.

[SnakeEyeSS]

Toyota shouldn't have had a fine because the problem was a group of incompetent drivers. They got fined for "obstructing" US Government Bull Spit.