Dangerous Car Seats; Feds Failing to Fix Cars

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Since you last heard from us there’s been a lot of car safety news. More Kia vehicles are being recalled due to fire risk, the federal government granted a petition to allow an autonomous delivery robot on the streets, some Florida residents are learning about how often used cars are sold with unrepaired recalls, and we've spent some time on TV talking about how even the government is selling recalled cars these days! Here's what you need to know:

First The Evenflo Company found itself in the middle of a scandal this week after a ProPublica investigation revealed that, although they labeled their Big Kid car seats as "side-impact tested," they failed to inform parents that the results were disastrous and even fatal. 

                     Source: ProPublica

“There’s nothing more precious than the lives of our children and nothing lower than deceiving parents into thinking a child car seat is safe for your son or daughter, when it isn’t. The federal government is eight years overdue to update its side crash test for child safety seats, and Evenflo appears even more overdue to find its conscience when it comes to marketing claims.” – Jason Levine, Executive Director

Read the whole story from ProPublica.

Second Tech company Nuro had it’s petition to begin testing its self-driving vehicle (with no people in it) on public roads approved by NHTSA. We had opposed this petition back in May, when we told NHTSA that Nuro's safety plan was not enough.

"We don't understand how NHTSA can possibly justify prioritizing this petition over the dozens of actual safety rules and enforcement actions that continue to lay fallow while they plow corporate selected ground," - Jason Levine, Executive Director

Read the full article from The Detroit News.

Third We attended the House Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce's hearing on "Autonomous Vehicles: Promises and Challenges of Evolving Automotive Technologies." We heard a lot of viewpoints, but not enough about average consumers and safety. Here’s what we had to say:

"The time for Congressional leadership that gives the best chance for the safe development of AV technology is now – before any more Americans have their lives upended, or prematurely lost, due to unregulated defective AV technology. Otherwise, today’s exaggerated ‘Full Self Driving’ claims by Tesla about vehicles which do not meet any such definition will soon seem tame." - The Center for Auto Safety Official Statement

Read the full statement and our letter to the subcommittee.

Finally The Federal government, through an agency called the General Services Administration (GSA) continues to sell cars that have been recalled for safety issues to the public, even after they were called out on it. Instead of fixing the recalled, dangerous vehicles before sale, they’ve decided to shift the responsibility to the consumer and disclose the recall in fine print, but disclosures don’t stop defects.

 "These are things that are by definition serious. So the idea the federal government is saying 'Well now, consumer, I’ve told you this is dangerous. It’s on you' is the height of hypocrisy." - Jason Levine, Executive Director

Watch our interview on ABC 7 Washington, DC.

There are so many auto safety problems for us to tackle and we work tirelessly every day to hold car manufacturers and the government accountable. No matter the issue, your support makes it possible for us to improve safety for everyone on the road!

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Sincerely,

Jason Levine
Executive Director

PS: By becoming a member now for less than $5 a month you can still receive your full 12 Safety Tune-Up Reports with customized safety information about the make, model, and year of your car!

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Center for Auto Safety

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(202) 328-7700

www.autosafety.org