New House Report Blasts NHTSA

On the heels of yesterday’s New York Times investigation, a report from the House Energy and Commerce Committee blasted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for an alleged series of critical mistakes leading up to GM’s recall of some 2.2 million small cars in the U.S. over faulty ignitions.

Related: GM Ignition-Switch Recall: What Owners Need To Know

The 44-page report claims NHTSA had information to identify the defects, which have been linked to more than a dozen deaths, as early as 2007. The report also concludes that the agency failed to link three investigations on crashes involving airbags that didn’t deploy in the Chevrolet Cobalt and didn’t understand “vehicle systems and functions implemented in response to the agency’s own standards,” including the link between airbags and vehicle power.

NHTSA Deputy Administrator David Friedman defended the agency to The Detroit News on Monday, saying he’d met with a dozen automakers to facilitate further discussions on how vehicle systems interact. NHTSA’s actions have also prompted some 1,300 recalls over the past decade.

Click here to read more on the report from The Detroit News.

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