Issues
Kia, Hyundai to recall vehicles to fix problem that can cause fires
Jason Levine, executive director of the nonprofit Center For Auto Safety, said Kia limited the latest recall to a relatively small number of vehicles without adequate explanation, raising more questions than answers. He said some consumers have complained of fires in vehicles that weren’t included in the engine repair recalls. He also raised concerns about…
Expert Voices: The case for certifying AVs before they take to the road
By: Jason Levine, Executive Director of the Center for Auto Safety There are currently no performance standards against which manufacturers can self-certify autonomous vehicles, as they do for conventional cars and trucks. Until the adoption of such standards, one way to assess the safety of AVs would be a certification program that includes objective safety…
Virginia Woman Says Her Car Is Outside Recall Despite Same Defect
“Every repair and every recall is different, but unfortunately because there’s money involved, it costs manufacturers money to recall and repair vehicles,” said Jason Levine of the Center for Auto Safety. “They have an incentive to limit the span of the years or models involved in a recall.” He said it’s important for consumers who…
Safety Advocates Say Popular Cars Continue to Spontaneously Catch Fire
The nonprofit group Center for Auto Safety says it has counted 280 non-collision Kia and Hyundai fires. It’s been urging the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to investigate. “What they should be doing is opening a new investigation into why Kias and Hyundais are catching fire,” said Jason Levine, the executive director of the Center…
The self-driving car industry just acknowledged it has an image problem
For the driverless car industry, 2018 saw technology breakthroughs. Unfortunately, the year also was a public relations disaster. An experimental Uber driverless car, with an inattentive “safety driver” at the wheel, ran over and killed a woman walking her bicycle across a highway in Arizona. A U.S. Senate bill that would have allowed hundreds of…
'Danger to the public': Car safety investigations on hold amid federal government shutdown
Federal workers must go without pay, national parks are a mess, and now vehicle safety investigations are on hold. The agency responsible for investigating defects in the nation’s cars, trucks and SUVs does not plan to do so during the government shutdown. It’s the latest in a growing list of impacts caused by a political test of wills…
As I-75 turns more deadly, what can be done?
GAINESVILLE — Nashville resident Mark Quarles said he and his wife make the drive from Tennessee to the Orlando area on Interstate 75 several times a year to visit family, and he has noticed how speeding increases once motorists cross into Florida, particularly from Lake City south. Quarles made the trip over the Christmas holiday…
Sergio Marchionne: Oddly Honored Despite Fighting Deadly Jeep Recall
Here’s what The Center for Auto Safety’s executive director Jason Levine said recently said about how Marchionne should be remembered: “To the safety community, Mr. Marchionne’s legacy will forever be hitched to making a backroom deal which kept deadly defective Jeeps on the road.” There’s a lot of hard-to-believe stuff happening in the world and…
Uber says it’s relaunching self-driving cars with major safety upgrades
“Uber’s got a long way to go to build that public trust, particularly when we’re talking about driverless cars.”
Report says 16.7M faulty Takata air bags still on US roads
Jason Levine, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, said it’s taking too long to replace all of the inflators. “The numbers speak for themselves: In a matter of weeks there will be over 25 million unrepaired recalled Takata air bag inflators remaining on the roads, 10 years after this process started and…