BUSINESS
February 14, 2012 | By Jerry Hirsch, Los Angeles Times
Federal safety investigators have announced their second probe in less than a week involving fires starting in the driver's side doors of vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it had opened an investigation into reports of fires in 2006-07 Chevrolet Trailblazers manufactured by General Motors Co. Last week, the agency said it was looking into the cause of fires in 2007 model year Toyota Camry sedans and RAV-4 sport utility vehicles. In both cases, the agency said it appeared that the fires started in the power window master switch on the door.
OPINION
April 4, 2011
In 2008, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released a study examining fatal accidents in which a car's air bag should have deployed but didn't. The most common reason wasn't poor manufacturing by automakers. It was that the air bag was simply missing, never replaced after a previous crash. The numbers weren't large, averaging 51 accidents a year nationwide over the five years studied. But that doesn't mean there's no cause for concern. Who knows how many more cars are on the road without air bags?
BUSINESS
February 23, 2011 | By Jerry Hirsch, Los Angeles Times
Federal safety regulators are looking into reports that the 2006 model year Toyota Highlander hybrid SUV is prone to stalling. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it has received 32 complaints from drivers alleging incidents of the vehicle stalling unexpectedly. About two-thirds of the incidents occurred at speeds of 40 mph or more. In most of the cases, the vehicles could not be restarted and had to be taken in for service. NHTSA said on its website Tuesday that the complaints apparently are increasing, with all but one received within the last year.
BUSINESS
February 7, 2011 | By Ralph Vartabedian and Ken Bensinger, Los Angeles Times
An investigation into sudden acceleration in Toyota and Lexus vehicles by the nation's space agency is expected to report Tuesday that no significant electronic defects have been found, though the issue requires continued monitoring, according to automotive electronics and safety experts. The NASA report was commissioned by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration after thousands of owners complained that their Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles accelerated unexpectedly, causing dozens of deaths.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
January 6, 2011 | Rong-Gong Lin II
Motorists and passengers in California, Oregon and Washington state have the highest seat-belt use in the country, according to a new report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Oregon ? where nearly 94% of people said they always wore a seat belt ? ranked No. 1, according to a CDC telephone survey. California was close behind in self-reported seat belt use at 93.2%, followed by Washington state at 92%. All three states have strict enforcement of safety belt laws ?
NATIONAL
January 1, 2011 | By Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times
Four children were dead on an Oklahoma highway. It was a crash scene so horrific that Jim Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, flew down from Washington to oversee the investigation. He spotted one of his engineers fiddling with some computer chips. "I asked him what he was doing," Hall recalled. "And he told me he was trying to download some data, that he had found a black box. " Until that day in 1994, Hall had not known that automakers were quietly installing black boxes, also known as event data recorders or EDRs, and encrypting the data.