As the backlash against GM begins to wane, legislators and safety advocates have increasingly turned their attention to the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration’s actions, or lack thereof, that allowed the death tally to grow for a decade.
At least one staff member voiced concerns over several fatal crashes that appeared to be related to disabled airbags, however management decided against pursuing a formal inquiry.
“We and I are willing to check our own math here,” Foxx said during a Monday appearance, as quoted by The Detroit News. “I’ve asked our inspector general to go through and do an after-action on this GM situation to see if there is anything we didn’t do that we should have done. We will learn from that report, and until that time we have our team intact.”
GM fired more than a dozen employees that were deemed partially responsible for the debacle, though the recall delays were blamed on incompetence rather than a willful coverup. Critics have called for higher-level executives, particularly in the legal department, to be removed from their positions as the company attempts to reshape its corporate culture.
Foxx argues that GM is solely responsible for the fiasco, as the company never provided a “timely heads-up.”
Safety advocates have pointed out that the NHTSA’s responsibilities include spotting problems that manufacturers do not see or fail to report. Foxx has countered by claiming the agency staff were reviewing complaints, however the data did not point to a safety defect at the time.
“I don’t agree that NHTSA just took the answers for granted,” he said. “They were looking for data to suggest that there was a problem.”
DoT and NHTSA leadership will face their own round of House and Senate grilling after committees have completed their hearings focused on GM. The agencies have not announced a specific time-frame for completing their internal inquiry.
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