Risk register · entry
Q1 · PredictableGM ignition-switch recall
A key that slipped to off shut down the airbags. GM knew for a decade and fixed nothing.
Documented, foreseeable risks that were ignored anyway. The failure is attention, not information.
Why this room
The defect was documented inside GM for years before it was acted on: the switch was approved below GM's own torque specification, the airbag non-deployment consequence was understood, and it was the subject of repeated internal engineering inquiries, technical service bulletins and crash investigations. No new information arrived in 2014. What changed was that the company finally moved. The Valukas report and the congressional oversight record describe an organisation in which the fault was repeatedly seen and repeatedly not owned, captured in the internal terms 'the GM nod' (agreeing to a plan with no intention of executing it) and 'the GM salute' (crossed arms pointing outward, indicating the responsibility is someone else's). That is the defining signature of q1: the failure was attention and accountability, not information.
The record
- The GM compensation fund administered by Kenneth Feinberg approved 124 death claims and 275 injury claims, accepting 399 of 4,343 claims filed and rejecting 91 percent.certain
- GM entered a deferred prosecution agreement and forfeited $900 million, admitting that from spring 2012 to about February 2014 it failed to disclose the potentially lethal defect to NHTSA and the public and misled consumers about the safety of the affected cars.certain
- GM paid $35 million, the maximum civil penalty then available to NHTSA, for failing to inform the regulator about the ignition-switch defect.certain
- The February 2014 recall covered over 2 million vehicles, expanded in staged tranches (an initial group, then a further 748,024 vehicles, then 823,788 more).high
- At the June 2014 congressional hearing GM's acknowledged death toll was still 13; the independently administered compensation fund ultimately accepted 124.certain
Sources
The book
This entry is one of 111 in the register. The full story, and what it cost the people who lived it, is in Risky Business by Claudia Zeisberger, David Munro and Joanna Reijgersberg-Siew.
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