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 quadrant
The switch was approved below GM's own torque specification, the airbag consequence was understood, and it went through repeated internal engineering inquiries, service bulletins and crash investigations. No new information arrived in 2014. The company simply moved. The Valukas report describes an organisation with names for this: the GM nod, agreeing to a plan nobody intends to execute, and the GM salute, arms crossed and pointing outward. The compensation fund accepted 124 deaths.
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
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