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RENTING RECALLED CARS * USA
* DC - Beware: Rental Companies Can Still Rent Recalled Cars -- For Now
Washington,DC,USA -The Car Connection, by Richard Read -May 10, 2013: -- Nearly ten years ago, Raechel and Jacqueline Houck were killed in a horrific accident when the Chrysler PT Cruiser they'd rented from Enterprise Rent-A-Car caught fire, causing the sisters to lose control of the vehicle and collide with an 18-wheeler... The Houcks' mother, Cally, lobbied for legislation to help prevent such tragedies from happening again. Dubbed the "Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act of 2011", it had a number of legislative sponsors and was included in the massive surface transportation bill that Congress approved last summer... When that bill passed, though, we couldn't find any mention of the Safe Rental Car act, and now we know why: because it had been removed... A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators has now teamed up to present the Safe Rental Car Act again... The new bill requires that rental car companies ground any recalled vehicles within 24 hours of receiving a recall notice from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The time limit is extended to 48 hours if a rental company has more than 5,000 of the affected vehicles in its fleet... Sometimes, recalls provide a list of temporary measures that can be taken until a complete fix is available. Should that occur, the bill allows rental companies to roll out those measures and continue renting the vehicles until replacement parts for the problem are distributed... Also, the bill gives NHTSA the authority to investigate rental car companies' compliance with the law...* Cars made in Brazil are deadly
Sao Paulo,SP,Brazil -The Detroit News/Associated Press, by Bradley Brooks -May 12, 2013: -- The cars roll endlessly off the local assembly lines of the industry's biggest automakers, more than 10,000 a day, into the eager hands of Brazil's new middle class. The shiny new Fords, Fiats, and Chevrolets tell the tale of an economy in full bloom that now boasts the fourth largest auto market in the world. What happens once those vehicles hit the streets, however, is shaping up as a national tragedy, experts say, with thousands of Brazilians dying every year in auto accidents that in many cases shouldn't have proven fatal. The culprits are the cars themselves, produced with weaker welds, scant safety features and inferior materials compared to similar models manufactured for U.S. and European consumers, say experts and engineers inside the industry. Four of Brazil's five bestselling cars failed their independent crash tests. Unsafe cars, coupled with the South American nation's often dangerous driving conditions, have resulted in a Brazilian death rate from passenger car accidents that is nearly four times that of the United States, according to an Associated Press analysis of Brazilian Health Ministry data on deaths compared to the size of each country's car fleet... In fact, the two countries are moving in opposite directions on survival rates — the U.S. recorded 40 percent fewer fatalities from car wrecks in 2010 compared with a decade before. In Brazil, the number killed rose 72 percent, according to the latest available data. Dr. Dirceu Alves, of Abramet, a Brazilian association of doctors that specializes in treating traffic accident victims, said poorly built cars take an unnecessary toll...
Labels: drivers' safety
posted by Unknown @ 11:14 AM
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