The New York Times has obtained documents which show G.M. deceived federal authorities about what it knew regarding crashes and defective ignition switches.
Times reporters Rebecca Ruiz and Danielle Ivory begin a front page story with an anecdote about Gene Erickson who was traveling down a rural road in Texas when his Saturn Ion suddenly swerved into a tree. He died.
When asked by federal authorities why the air bag failed, the auto company could not provide answers.
But the Times reports that a month earlier a GM engineer concluded in an internal evaluation that the car likely lost power, which disabled the airbags.
The Times writes that GM's response to the Erickson crash and others, obtained by the paper from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, casts doubt on how forthright the car giant was with regulators regarding faulty ignition switches linked to at least 13 deaths in the past 10 years.
The Times writes of GM:
The company repeatedly found a way not to answer the simple question from regulators of what led to a crash. In at least three cases of fatal crashes, including the accident that killed Mr. Erickson, G.M. said that it had not assessed the cause. In another fatal crash, G.M. said that attorney-client privilege may have prevented it from answering. And in other cases, the automaker was more blunt, writing, “G.M. opts not to respond.” The responses came even though G.M. had for years been aware of sudden power loss in the models involved in the accidents.
