New York Times: "G.M. Secrecy on Crashes Adds to Families’ Pain"

[seanhaight]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/busin ... ashes.html

There is anger that General Motors did not come forward sooner with information about its faulty cars. There is grief that loved ones were lost in crashes that might have been preventable. And there is outrage that federal safety regulators did not intervene.

But what is now most upsetting to many relatives of people killed in accidents involving recalled G.M. cars is the uncertainty and secrecy surrounding the crashes — the fact that G.M. won’t tell them what they most want to know.

Not only has G.M. twice adjusted the number of deaths it says are linked to an ignition switch defect, but it has also refused to disclose publicly the list of the confirmed victims, now said to be 13. The enduring mystery has left scores of grieving families playing a guessing game, including the relatives of one accident victim, identified by The New York Times and confirmed by the office of Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, to be among the 13.

“Why do you think G.M. has not contacted us? It’s not like they don’t know where we live,” said Cathy Sachse, whose mother-in-law was killed in 2009 while driving a Saturn Ion in Missouri. “Trust me, we have been haunted for five years not knowing what happened to her.”

The Times identified Marie Sachse, who was 81 at the time of her death, from an analysis of federal crash data, which is based on police reports and claims that automakers report to the government that blame vehicle defects for serious injuries or deaths. Presented with the crash details, the senator’s office, in an email, said it had confirmed the specifics with both G.M. and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, but had not been given Ms. Sachse’s name.

A spokesman for G.M. would not say why the company had not contacted the Sachse family. “We are not providing comment on specific incidences,” Greg Martin, a spokesman for G.M., said in an email. “We continue to express our deep regret and sympathy for all who have been affected by the ignition switch recall.”

As families revisit old wounds in search of answers, the Sachse case not only illustrates the frustration of G.M.’s wall of silence, but also the difficulty in challenging the automaker. Relatives and their lawyers are running up against a technological reality beyond G.M.’s narrow definition of victims: Because many of the cars and their so-called black boxes were damaged or destroyed, there may not be enough evidence left from the crashes to prove what happened.

Data from the black box, a term used to describe a data sensor in the car, can tell investigators about the last milliseconds of a motorist’s life. The sensor can record the car’s speed, the intensity of an impact and other measures that are used in deploying the air bags.

But the system cannot definitively answer every question. It starts recording data only when it senses an impact, for example, and it can stop recording if the car shuts off. If that happens, the data may reflect the initial impact, but subsequent impacts — as when a car rolls over — might not register. In the end, without additional evidence, it might be impossible to use the data to prove the ignition turned off and the air bags did not deploy — two of the main criteria G.M. has used to identify victims.

It is unknown how big the pool of potential victims of the safety defect may be. Since 2003, G.M. has reported more than 75 deaths and 1,500 injuries involving early models of the now-recalled cars, according to a review of federal safety data. Though the records mention potentially defective components, it is unclear exactly how many of these crashes were related to the ignition defect.

General Motors settled a claim with the Sachses in 2011, long before it publicly disclosed the ignition defect, which has now led to a recall of 2.6 million vehicles. But the family’s lawyer, Jim Dowd, said that the data G.M. pulled from the car and provided to the family did not appear to show a severe accident. In fact, G.M. never told the family that the air bags failed to deploy, the Sachses said.

“It may well be that the ignition was the problem on that car, but you can’t prove it from this data,” said Rusty Haight, an expert in crash data analysis and director of the Collision Safety Institute, who reviewed photographs and data from the accident for The Times.

The Sachses’ lawyer hired Chris Caruso, a safety consultant who worked on G.M. air bags as an engineer for nearly 21 years before retiring in 2006, to inspect the data, the car and other evidence after the accident. “Because I designed the system, I know the air bags should have fired,” Mr. Caruso said.

Under such circumstances, proving whether blame lies with an ignition switch or a driver can be extremely difficult — and will most likely be at the center of countless legal battles over the coming months and years.

Lance Cooper, a lawyer, represented the family of a Chevrolet Cobalt driver, Jennifer Brooke Melton of Georgia, who died in a crash four years ago after her car’s power cut out. Four days before she was killed, Ms. Melton took her car in for service because the engine shut off while she was driving. Ms. Melton’s family reached a settlement with G.M.

Mary T. Barra, the automaker’s chief executive, testified on Tuesday before a House subcommittee that G.M. did not count the death of Ms. Melton among the 13 because her car received a side impact. Only head-on crashes, G.M. has said, would definitely set off air bag deployment — or signal a failure to deploy.

“If your photographs and your black box data don’t give you enough to say, ‘Yes, the air bags should have deployed,’ those are the kind of cases that may be difficult to pursue, even if you have some evidence,” said Mr. Cooper, who is now representing plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against G.M.

Ryan Backus, 29, was driving along a highway in rural Wisconsin eight years ago, the kind surrounded by farms and fields and not much else, on his way home from a friend’s wedding. His Cobalt veered off the road and up an embankment, and flipped multiple times before throwing him out onto the dead winter grass.

There was no open coffin. The funeral home exposed only a small part of his arm so his parents could see him when they said goodbye.

Elements of his death remain a mystery. Mr. Backus had been drinking, and he had been speeding, according to the police report and data from his car.

But despite the impact, the air bags never deployed. Even stranger, the Cobalt had completely shut off by the time it stopped rolling over.

These details have nagged at Ryan’s parents, Melody and Richard Backus, for years. Now, they wonder whether their son’s accident could be G.M.’s fault.

“Now we have more questions that we’re not going to get answered,” Mr. Backus said at their home in Oconomowoc, Wis. “We would have laid it to rest, not dealt with it all over.”

As far as his family knew, Ryan Backus never complained to G.M. about ignition problems with his car. But drivers who did were often told to remove items from their key rings.

Ryan Backus’s family remembers all the keys, the bottle opener and the rabbit’s foot that hung from his key chain. There was a guardian angel medallion, to keep him safe. His mother gave it to him and has kept it all these years.

The parents know that the key chain fits a pattern: G.M. had warned dealers that a heavy key ring could jostle the ignition switch and shut down a car. But they also know that it proves nothing about whether G.M. is responsible for their son’s death. Neither does the data from his car, which showed that the “vehicle power mode status” was off and the “run/crank ignition switch logic level” was inactive.

“The ignition switch shouldn’t be off unless you shut it off,” said Dave Hallman, a consulting engineer who reviewed the Cobalt’s information for The Times. Mr. Hallman said he could not determine whether the air bags should have deployed.

Ryan Backus’s accident was very likely caused by his speed, experts who analyzed the data agree. They do not agree on whether the air bags failed.

“You could lose your joy today worrying about what happened or fretting about what happened yesterday,” Mr. Backus said. “How can you begin to figure it out?”