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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.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday June 10 2014, @02:09AM
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
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
Did they really make you destroy your car in high school?
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.
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.