Auto executives such as General Motors CEO Mary Barra could get life in prison if a new bill authored by Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) passes in its entirety.
Below the provisions of the bill, any employee responsible for automobile safety could be jailed or even handed a life sentence for failing to report or repair defects. McCaskill introduced the Motor Automobile and Highway Security Enhancement Act last week to enable regulators the “financial and enforcement resources required to modernize and greater shield American buyers.”
The bill, amongst other provisions, would criminalize auto-safety violations to the very same degree as drug, weapons, and manslaughter charges. McCaskill’s bill, as presently worded, would consist of “any person director, officer, or agent of a corporation who authorizes, orders, or performs” anything that would lead to a safety violation. In addition to improved civil fines, defects proved to result in a single death could outcome in a maximum life sentence, whereas those resulting in “serious bodily injury” would carry a maximum 15-year sentence. “Any other case” would imply up to 5 years behind bars.
At the moment, the National Highway Visitors Safety Administration can levy civil fines against men and women for up to $ 7000 per violation per day, with a maximum of $ 17.35 million. Even though umbrella fines for recall delays are not uncommon—GM was fined the maximum $ 35 million below a specific order—individual fines are exceedingly uncommon as they’re really difficult to prove. Neither GM nor Toyota, even after the Japanese automaker paid $ 1.2 billion to resolve a 4-year criminal probe, has had any employees named in government lawsuits.
But McCaskill’s bill wouldn’t set the bar quite high. By her inclusion of U.S. code governing car compliance, anybody importing gray-market Land Rover Defenders or driving a “show or display” vehicle could be thrown in jail. The very same penalty would apply to affixing the incorrect certification label on the door jamb as glossing more than the difficulties with vast numbers of stalling Chevrolet Cobalts. The bill’s far more sensible items consist of banning rental businesses from renting vehicles that are topic to a recall, preventing automakers from deleting security gear for fleet orders, and enhanced funding for NHTSA. But even though a judge may well opt not to send somebody to jail for driving a non-U.S.-compliant supercar, the criminalization of an complete industry over such a broad swath of offenses may possibly be the most overkill regulatory response we’ve noticed. Surely, there must be a middle ground.
McCaskill led an April Senate hearing to grill Barra more than the company’s 13-year delay in repairing faulty ignition switches that led to at least 13 deaths, including one in McCaskill’s residence state. By all accounts, she succeeded in turning up switch engineer Ray DeGiorgio’s infamous portion-change approval, which led GM to fire him and 14 other personnel. Stiffer federal penalties could indeed keep automakers from slumbering at the wheel, but McCaskill’s bill is much less a reaction to millions of undesirable automobiles than it is a totalitarian decree against the market.
Senate Desires to Send Automaker Personnel to Prison—for Up to Life—for Car Defects
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