Auto executives such as General Motors CEO Mary Barra could get life in prison if a new bill authored by Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) passes in its entirety.
Under the provisions of the bill, any employee responsible for vehicle safety could be jailed or even handed a life sentence for failing to report or fix defects. McCaskill introduced the Motor Vehicle and Highway Safety Enhancement Act last week to allow regulators the "financial and enforcement resources necessary to modernize and better protect American consumers."
The bill, among other provisions, would criminalize auto-safety violations to the same degree as drug, weapons, and manslaughter charges. McCaskill's bill, as presently worded, would include "any individual director, officer, or agent of a corporation who authorizes, orders, or performs" anything that would lead to a safety violation. In addition to increased civil fines, defects proved to cause a single death could result in a maximum life sentence, whereas those resulting in "serious bodily injury" would carry a maximum 15-year sentence. "Any other case" would mean up to five years behind bars.
Currently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration can levy civil fines against individuals for up to $7000 per violation per day, with a maximum of $17.35 million. While umbrella fines for recall delays are not uncommon—GM was fined the maximum $35 million under a special order—individual fines are exceedingly rare as they're very tough to prove. Neither GM nor Toyota, even after the Japanese automaker paid $1.2 billion to resolve a four-year criminal probe, has had any employees named in government lawsuits.
But McCaskill's bill wouldn't set the bar very high. By her inclusion of U.S. code governing vehicle compliance, anyone importing gray-market Land Rover Defenders or driving a "show or display" car could be thrown in jail. The same penalty would apply to affixing the wrong certification label on the door jamb as glossing over the problems with vast numbers of stalling Chevrolet Cobalts. The bill's more sensible items include banning rental companies from renting cars that are subject to a recall, preventing automakers from deleting safety equipment for fleet orders, and increased funding for NHTSA. But while a judge might opt not to send someone to jail for driving a non-U.S.-compliant supercar, the criminalization of an entire industry over such a broad swath of offenses may be the most overkill regulatory response we've seen. Surely, there must be a middle ground.
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McCaskill led an April Senate hearing to grill Barra over the company's 13-year delay in repairing faulty ignition switches that led to at least 13 deaths, including one in McCaskill's home state. By all accounts, she succeeded in turning up switch engineer Ray DeGiorgio's infamous part-change approval, which led GM to fire him and 14 other employees. Stiffer federal penalties may indeed keep automakers from slumbering at the wheel, but McCaskill's bill is less a reaction to millions of bad cars than it is a totalitarian decree against the industry.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/nSHy27
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