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posted by n1 on Sunday June 08 2014, @06:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the unique-series-of-mistakes dept.

James R. Healey reports that General Motors has fired 15 people who either were incompetent or irresponsible in their actions involving fatally flawed ignition switches that are linked to 13 deaths in crashes where airbags failed to inflate. "A disproportionate number of those were in senior roles or executives," said GM CEO Mary Barra. Two high-ranking engineers previously put on paid leave were among them, said Barra adding that five more employees "one level removed" were disciplined in unspecified ways because they "simply didn't take action."

A far back as 2002, General Motors engineers starting calling it the "switch from hell" but it would take a dozen years, more than 50 crashes and at least 13 deaths for the automaker to recall the ignition switch, used in millions of small cars. GM's own internal investigation never explains how a lone engineer in a global automaker could approve a less expensive part that failed to meet GM standards. Nor does it illuminate why the same engineer could substitute an improved design without changing the part number, a move critics cite as evidence of a cover-up. After the first cars with the switch went on sale, GM heard complaints from customers, employees and dealers. But "group after group and committee after committee within GM that reviewed the issue failed to take action or acted too slowly," the report said. A unique series of mistakes was made," said Barra. And the problem was misunderstood to be one of owner satisfaction and not safety. GM engineers didn't understand that when the switches failed, they cut power to the airbags.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday June 08 2014, @09:53PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 08 2014, @09:53PM (#53042)

    "What is so hard to believe about a car spontaneously shutting down at speed being a major safety problem?"

    LOL that was funny, tag that "#FirstWorldProblems" or whatever. Even worse "#RichDudeProblems"

    Back when I was a starving student, I was really dirt poor, if I had $20 for every time my first POS stalled out or the choke got stuck or it just plain old quit, I wouldn't have been driving a POS... City streets, freeway, stuck in the snow, you name it, it croaked all the time.

    It got to the point that I could SMOOTHLY shift from D to N, crank crank crank until it finally restarts, then shift back to D while still moving.

    I recall if I turned very hard left, there was something wrong with the carb float (yes I'm that old) such that the engine would flood and die, and the choke would either jam open or jam shut, which led to all kinds of fun keeping it running. And ignition trouble, something about pre-1990-ish cars where any time the humidity was above 90% it ran rough/died. It was the last mechanical distributor ignition car I ever drove...

    Yes I'm thinking this problem might skew a bit toward the cadillac and corvette crowd and not so much the rusted out Ford Galaxy crowd or rusted out Plymouth Horizon crowd. They were actually decent cars when they were working...

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 08 2014, @10:09PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 08 2014, @10:09PM (#53045)

    > Back when I was a starving student, I was really dirt poor, if I had $20 for every time my first POS stalled out

    Don't be a dolt. Trying to apply your personal anecdote is way off base - your luck does not translate into the loss of power steering, power brakes, belt tensioners and airbags being a safety neutral event.

  • (Score: 1) by jelizondo on Monday June 09 2014, @12:33AM

    by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 09 2014, @12:33AM (#53078) Journal

    I had the belt break on a new car. No power steering, no power brakes and I did manage to simply move to the right of the road and park it... At another time, in a narrow road I went into the shoulder to let another car pass me, I did not notice there was big rock on the way; hit it, lost a tire doing about 50 MPH (80 km/h), pumped the brake a little, coasted until I could safely stop and tada!, nothing happened.

    It is unfortunate that some people died from the failure of the switch, but one really should be able to deal with emergency conditions such a losing a tire, the belt breaking or a dead motor; if you can't, then you should not be driving.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09 2014, @12:41AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09 2014, @12:41AM (#53080)

      > It is unfortunate that some people died from the failure of the switch, but one really should be able to deal with emergency conditions such a losing a tire, the belt breaking or a dead motor; if you can't, then you should not be driving.

      Wow, geeks really are narcissists. Your personal experience is the only experience that could possibly be valid. Nevermind the fact that your experience is pure luck - a minor change in circumstances beyond your control and you would not be here to brag about how anybody who died from this failure deserved it because their driving skills weren't up to snuff.

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 09 2014, @11:17AM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 09 2014, @11:17AM (#53183)

        LOL how much is GM paying you to astroturf, and can I get in on the action?

        The funny part is the "highly skilled driver" I'm talking about was your stereotypical inexperienced over confident reckless alcohol and drug experimenting adventurous teen boy. Not every kid gets a new Ferrari on their 16th birthday. Most kids... most peoples... first car is a falling apart POS because their poor. Oddly enough its not a problem for actual poor people, although people born on 3rd base think an engine failure must be like being over an ocean in a jetliner with all the engines out, seeing as the new porsche never broke down they have no idea what its like, LOL.

        The funny thing is the supposed guaranteed fatality of lack of power steering or power brakes doesn't make sense. Another poster related pretty much the only way to get hurt while power steering fails, which is to pull down with one hand with one pound of force and then not react quickly when the steering goes and one pound of force changes your turn radius a bit. Happened to me a couple times and it wasn't a big deal. Power brakes are great in stop and go traffic for sheer exhaustion reasons not because its impossible to stop a car without them. Ditto power steering, sure makes parking at 1 MPH easy.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09 2014, @11:50AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09 2014, @11:50AM (#53192)

          > LOL how much is GM paying you to astroturf, and can I get in on the action?

          Yes, GM is paying me to make sure everyone knows that GM is culpable for these deaths.
          And the trial lawyers suing GM must be paying you to defend GM.

          With that demonstration of your mental acuity I don't think anything else needs to be said.

        • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday June 10 2014, @02:09AM

          by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday June 10 2014, @02:09AM (#53523) Journal

          Seriously. What do they teach these people? I took driver's ed in highschool and dealing with this sort of stuff was just part of the course. For example:

          "Go to the top of the hill down to the reservoir. Get going, downhill at 40MPH. Stop the car before the 'road ends in 500 feet' sign without touching the brakes."

          "We're going to simulate the engine stalling (by reaching over and turning the key) -- now restart the car on the highway without stopping."

          "We're going to simulate a tire blowout (by reaching over and yanking the wheel) -- keep the car under control."

          "We're gonna cut the engine again for a bit at speed, drive for a while without power steering."

          Although...in at least some of these cases it appears that the problem wasn't so much that the engine died, but that the bad switch shut off the airbags. But failure to properly install a safety feature is sure as hell not murder. Presumably -- since I'm pretty sure airbags are federally mandated -- there should be some kind of penalty in that law which could be applied. So if you want to be strict about it, just consider every car sold with a faulty switch to have been sold without airbags and punish accordingly. But it's impossible to die because the airbags didn't deploy. You'd die because you fuckin' crashed the car, and the airbag failure would just be an unfortunate accident.

          • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 10 2014, @11:28AM

            by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 10 2014, @11:28AM (#53703)

            In retrospect I did stuff like that in the 80s/90s unintentionally because I had a POS car, (the tire blowout was somewhat anticlimactic but it was much louder than I expected) but to properly train in 2014 you'd have to do all that plus browse SN on your phone while applying makeup and drinking coffee and changing the music CD and giving the baby a bottle all at the same time. And then blame the other guy when you hit them, of course.

          • (Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday June 11 2014, @03:35AM

            by dry (223) on Wednesday June 11 2014, @03:35AM (#54008) Journal

            Did they really make you destroy your car in high school?

            "Go to the top of the hill down to the reservoir. Get going, downhill at 40MPH. Stop the car before the 'road ends in 500 feet' sign without touching the brakes."

            Going down a good hill at 40 MPH and stopping without touching the brakes involves a runaway lane or rubbing against something to stop. Gearing down only helps so much, even with turning the engine off.

            "We're going to simulate the engine stalling (by reaching over and turning the key) -- now restart the car on the highway without stopping."

            I blew the exhaust of of my car when ignition cut off then came back on, made a fuck of a bang too when all that gas in the exhaust ignited. (engine keeps turning over, operating the fuel pump and creating a vacuum which sucks gas from the carb into th engine and out the exhaust) Still it is pretty easy to smack the instructor and turn the key back on.

            I hope they didn't do the "yank the steering wheel" trick on the freeway.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by dry on Monday June 09 2014, @04:52AM

      by dry (223) on Monday June 09 2014, @04:52AM (#53135) Journal

      I had a belt break while making a right turn, the only reason there wasn't an accident was due to no one else in the intersection, especially pedestrians since unexpectedly losing my power steering in a middle of a turn changed my turning radius by quite a bit. Doesn't matter how good of a driver you are, losing steering or a blowout at the wrong time can be deadly.
      I'm like you with the rest of my mechanical failures, really lucky they happened on nice straight stretches of road.

  • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday June 09 2014, @03:56PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Monday June 09 2014, @03:56PM (#53275) Homepage Journal

    You're lucky to be alive! I knew a kid with a Firebird with a huge engine. He hit the 17th car of a freight train at 96 mph. This poor kid had the worst day I ever heard of anyone having. First, he got laid off at work, then his girlfriend broke up with him, and his dad threw him out of the house an hour before he died. Of course, everyone thought it was a suicide.

    The accident investigators found that no, he didn't suicide. They determined that a motor mount broke, the engine twisted from the torque, pulling the throttle wide open. The poor kid didn't have a chance.

    --
    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09 2014, @04:08PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09 2014, @04:08PM (#53279)

      Surely the gradual application of one foot-pound of force would have completely prevented the accident, he should never have been driving in the first place! Incompetent 'tard got what was comin to him.

    • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday June 10 2014, @02:23AM

      by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday June 10 2014, @02:23AM (#53530) Journal

      The accident investigators found that no, he didn't suicide. They determined that a motor mount broke, the engine twisted from the torque, pulling the throttle wide open. The poor kid didn't have a chance.

      Couldn't that have been averted by shifting to neutral and using the emergency brake? That's what we were always taught to do if the gas pedal jammed; I don't know much about cars but it sounds like this would be similar. Perhaps he didn't have time though...

      • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday June 10 2014, @01:46PM

        by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Tuesday June 10 2014, @01:46PM (#53754) Homepage Journal

        Possibly, or even just put the clutch in, but he probably panicked. He would have only had seconds to think, it was a REALLY fast car.

        --
        mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org