You try to do a good thing... Gov't recall website gets blasted by consumer groups
Not even an "E" for effort? Apparently not. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has a website called SaferCar, where you can sign up to get email alerts about new vehicle recalls as they come in. You simply tell NHTSA all about your car and if a recall notice is issued, they ping your email, cell phone, PDA or RSS reader. At least that's the theory. Consumer advocate groups like the Consumer Federation of America and the Center for Auto Safety are calling the NHTSA program a "sham," and say it is actually counter-productive. So what gives?NHTSA says that as many as 25% of the recall letters sent by manufacturers are ignored by customers and the plan was to help the public respond to recalls more often. The problem is the recall notices being sent through the NHTSA program are keyed to vehicle year and make, not to the individual model or a specific configuration. So owners were getting notices of every 2008 Toyota recall, for example, even if they had an unaffected Toyota model.
Consumer groups are upset, claiming that this makes car owners more likely to ignore notices because there are so many coming through that don't pertain to them. NHTSA says it will take another look at how they are running the program and make changes if necessary.
[Source: Kicking Tires]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
XJ 9:13AM (1/16/2009)
Well I think it's a good start. But how hard is it to change it so that it only goes out to owners of a particular make, year and model?
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david 10:26AM (1/16/2009)
At what point does keeping the public "safe" infringe upon our freedoms given in the Constitution?
I'd like to believe in my government, but year after year they F things up more and more.
david 10:27AM (1/16/2009)
stupid commenting system, my reply above is supposed to go to Flashpoint.
Flashpoint 9:32AM (1/16/2009)
For all those people that argue government should stay out of our lives...
The government's primary job is TO PROTECT THE SAFETY OF ITS CITIZENS - typically through enforcement of law & order.
I believe in my government...but I've lost faith in the people. There are plenty of idiots judging from the 2008 election results. On top of them, are the apathetic.
On Youtube, George Carlin spoke about "politicians and voting" -
"if you have greedy, self serving, rotten people in the public, then the leaders they elect will be just like them".
-He's 100% correct.
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Ligor 12:45PM (1/16/2009)
by the 2008 voting results,
you tihnk voting Bush in place was a good idea
i call you the idiot then
since he took a strong nation and put it in it's place by pretty much destroying everything good about it before he took office - that retard should have been kept in his daddy's basement
Jason 9:47AM (1/16/2009)
So let me get this straight, people are too lazy to read their mail, so the govt sets up a service to help. This service sends them all of the recalls for a brand and year. People complain because they only want the relevant information, and the relevant information was in their mailbox the whole time. Makes sense. People's ability to blame someone else for them being lazy is astounding.
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akboss 12:49PM (1/16/2009)
+1!
delicia 8:16PM (2/15/2009)
Jason, Calling people names like lazy is to broad of a comment, don't you think? The e-mail of recall notices is not only an additional way to notify the owner of a possible problem or defect , but a chance to save a life. Mail gets lost, people move, titles are not always reliable residence information.
If you want to be angry and call people names, focus on the Auto Industry that fails, to recall defective parts, when they know the part is dangerous, all out of Greed. My innocent son and his girlfriend was burned to death , over a 20.00 part Ford failed to recall. We were not lazy, Ford was greedy, doing the recall on the cruise control switch in stages as to not scare off the consumer. My car should have been recalled in 1999. Years before I purchased the car, and my son would be alive today.
Be mad that the NHTSA doesn't declare or force recalls on dangerous defective parts. They wait for a Ford to voluntarily recall, in Ford's Lazy ,yet highly calculated on time.
Mazda FTW! 9:48AM (1/16/2009)
The key word here is 'consumer'. Anyone who has worked in any job will know that the words 'logic' and 'consumer' are never to be spoken in the same sentence :P
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Coco 10:05AM (1/16/2009)
This is stupid, to busy to take 5 minutes to read and identify their particular model from the letter...
Actually I wouldn't mind having all the recalls for a particular brand, overall quality of a brand will be reflected in those recalls.
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nardvark 10:29AM (1/16/2009)
It doesn't seem like it should be that hard to do this correctly. Supply your VIN when you sign up for the service, and then set the e-mail server to only send to the affected VIN's...
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MKULTRABLIZZARD 10:29AM (1/16/2009)
i use this for all of our cars + trucks and I've been happy with it so far. And i agree with some of the comments: take the time to read the email to see if your particular model is affected and you'll be good.
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TwinTurbo3000GT 10:48AM (1/16/2009)
They're making way too big of a deal about this. I've been signed up for like 5 months now and i've only got 3 emails. None pertained to my vehicle specifically ('08 Mitsubishi Lancer), but it says right at the top of the email which vehicles are effected. People act like their inboxes are being flooded with this stuff...they're just lazy.
It is a good thing and i hope they keep it around.
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Mike 10:57AM (1/16/2009)
Sounds great to me, Pontiac doesn't send out recall letters for my car anyways as there weren't enough of them made to make it worth their time.
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cdwrx 11:45AM (1/16/2009)
Yeah, the service could be better, but I still think it's better than nothing. But if you think the car portion could be better, check out the motorcycle portion. You can't even choose your year or make. You get notification of *every* motorcycle recall. Same goes for car seats.
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Jim 12:28PM (1/16/2009)
Now is that really the NHTSA's fault if consumers CHOOSE not to read? All car companies do not change most features each year anyways, so it is a great idea to know about recalls for like year models. Some of these consumer advocacy groups exist just to criticize others.
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HJC 1:44PM (1/16/2009)
Customers are ALWAYS right!! Thought everyone knew!
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P.V. 4:20PM (1/16/2009)
Wow. It seems everything even remotely related to the word "consumer" must appeal to the absolute lowest common denominator. Pathetic.
This reminds me of a woman who got a laptop with Ubuntu installed (she accidentally ordered the wrong thing) and took her story to a news organization to complain to Dell instead of actively finding information to solve her problem (and not make a big deal about it), except now the equivalent of this woman is the many many people affected by these emails.
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Evan 12:51PM (1/17/2009)
Although, I'd say it's personnal frustrating that there's a recall on something I got replaced 6 months ago on a 10 year old car that was only recalled about 18 months ago. The "remedy" is to contact Nissan, and was appearently no notification on this one. I guess I now get to try to argue with Nissan that they owe me money.
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Mr. Big cock 12:50PM (1/27/2009)
I just use DriverSide.com. It sends me the recall information for my car. You need to register but it is free and easy
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