Issues
Magnuson-Moss Overview
In 1975 Congress adopted a piece of landmark legislation, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. The Act was designed to prevent manufacturers from drafting grossly unfair consumer warranties and to make it economically viable for consumers to bring warranty suits by providing for the award of attorney’s fees. States built on the themes of the Magnuson-Moss Act…
Opinion: Driverless car bill a disaster waiting to happen
Despite almost daily reports of crashes or non-responsive technology on public roads involving driverless cars, Congress is trying to hitch a new law to Santa’s sleigh in the form of the year-end-keep-the-government-open spending bill, just ahead of a new majority come January. Today, all motor vehicle operators, particularly commercial drivers, are required to pass a…
Exploding sunroofs: A look at why the investigation has dragged on for half a decade
“It’s not just happening frequently, it’s happening across manufacturers, said Jason Levine from the Center for Auto Safety.” “This appears to be, from all accounts, a defect that is well documented,” Levine said. “And when something is defective, it’s on that manufacturer to take care of it. And, if not, people do have the ability to…
Opinion: AV START threatens public safety and driverless car potential
In the final days of this session, the U.S. Senate may vote on legislation that would essentially turn our public streets into proving grounds for driverless cars that are not ready for prime time. The AV START Act (S. 1885) would allow for widespread sale of these nascent systems under the guise of safety, but…
A Little-Known Tactic Can Make the U.S. Investigate Your Car-Safety Problem
That so many of the petitions in the last decade were dismissed is not a surprise to Jason Levine, the executive director of the Center for Auto Safety. What seems to work best is a defect petition “in combination with consumer awareness, media attention and other mechanisms to sort of raise the temperature,” said Mr.…
A Lawyer’s Battle to Puncture Secrecy and Legal Misconduct by Goodyear
The director of the Center for Auto Safety, Jason Levine, said that while only somewhat more than 40,000 of the tires were distributed for use on motor homes between 1996 and 2003, Goodyear has acknowledged that more than 3,000 had problems. Most were handled through warranty adjustments, but there were also hundreds of property damage…
Questions after fires in Kia & Hyundai vehicles: Sorentos, Optimas, Santa Fes and Sonatas
“What we started seeing here is a pattern, which is unusual, that no crash was involved and there were a lot of them happening in the two manufacturer’s models — Hyundai and Kias,” Jason Levine said. He said the problem is so extreme the government should force a massive recall of 3 million cars. So…
Car engines going up in flames across the country
Jason Levine, the Executive Director of the Center for Auto Safety, said the companies need to take appropriate action too. “[We’ve gotten a] lot of reports of people saying they don’t feel like they’re being taken seriously,” he said. “I would also point to the fact that they’ve not gone ahead and issued a separate…
CAS comments on the DOT publication of Preparing for the Future of Transportation: Automated Vehicles 3.0
December 3, 2018 Secretary Elaine Chao U.S. Department of Transportation 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE Washington, DC 20590 Submitted electronically via www.regulations.gov RE: Preparing for the Future of Transportation: Automated Vehicles 3.0, Docket DOT-OST-2018-0149 Dear Secretary Chao: The Center for Auto Safety (“the Center”) appreciates the opportunity to comment on the Department of Transportation’s (“DOT”)…