Honda Motor Company disclosed this week that it failed to report 1,729 injuries or deaths to the NHTSA as required by law. The unreported incidents, which occurred between 2003 and 2014, vastly outweigh the approximately 900 injuries or deaths the company did report during that time.
The New York Times reports that this week's revelation comes after an outside law firm audited Honda's reporting procedures at the carmaker's request. The issue of under-reporting injuries and deaths was first identified by a Honda employee in 2011, the Times reports. "Apparently, there was no follow-up," Honda said in a statement.
The required reports are part of Early Warning Reporting, a system that requires carmakers to report to the NHTSA any injuries or deaths blamed on vehicle defects. The system was established in 2000 in response to rollover crashes blamed on Ford Explorers wearing Firestone tires.
Rick Schostek, executive vice president of Honda North America, blamed the missing reports on "inadvertent data entry and computer programming errors," noting that injury and death claims entered without a date were omitted from incident reports. Not everyone buys that explanation: Allan J. Kam, a former NHTSA lawyer now working as an auto safety consultant, told The New York Times "this is not an occasional error; this is systematic underreporting by the company."
The admission could open Honda up to federal penalties up to $35 million, the maximum fine General Motors received for failure to disclose defective ignition switches in a timely manner, though lawmakers are now considering raising the maximum fine significantly. Ferrari was slapped with a $3.5 million fine this month for failing to submit the same Early Warning Reports that Honda neglected to file, though in Ferrari's case the missing reports only concerned three fatal accidents.
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Honda's underreporting came to light during a separate investigation into faulty Takata airbags, which Honda has linked to five deaths and dozens of injuries, The New York Times reports. Eight of Honda's missing claims, including one fatality, had to do with defective Takata airbags, which can deploy with excessive force and fire shrapnel at drivers and passengers in an accident. The automaker finds itself in increasingly hot water over Takata airbag issues, which the company reportedly hid from the NHTSA for several years prior to recall activity.
Honda says it has fixed the computer issues that led to the under-reporting, and is retraining its workers and updating the departments responsible for early warning reporting.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/nSHy27
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