The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced Thursday that it would fine Honda $70 million “for failing to report death and injury data in a timely manner.”
Autoblog reports the fine is based on 1,729 incidents over 11 years that were not brought to the attention of the NHTSA via the agency’s Early Warning Reporting system. Further, some of the incidences have still yet to be reported, prompting new administrator Mark Rosekind to send investigators to Honda to retrieve the missing information.
The fine, the largest ever delivered by the agency to an automaker, is composed of two separate $35 million fines, one for the death and injury data, the other for missing warranty claims. The U.S. Department of Justice is considering a criminal investigation into the matter, though nothing has been confirmed thus far.
Say it ain’t so, not Honda the “family values” automaker is now a big nasty just like the others
Won’t someone think of the children?
Honda clears $1 Billion dollars each and every quarter.
This is like fining Warren Buffet for $75.
How will I ever pay my bills this week?
Bad publicity, priceless!
Worth noting is that “failure to report” is very much the same thing that Toyota was fined for.
I always love it when congress set up a system with “self-reporting”, and then sometime down the road is surprised and upset when they find out it didn’t happen. Me thinks Honda may not be alone.
That reminds me I need to call the IRS to tell them, “I cheated on my returns for 2010 and 2011” They’ll be so pleased to hear from me
Dear Lie2Me,
Thanks for your honesty, that’s ok because we’ve been cheating you since you were born. We see you are not an opposing political action group so we’ll let it slide this time but remember- all of your base are belong to us.
Hugs and Kisses,
Your local jackbooted thugs.
*snicker* I’ve got the missing emails
http://blog.caranddriver.com/nhtsa-fines-honda-70-million-for-missing-safety-data/
This car and driver article goes into far greater detail. $35 million for not reporting extended and third-party warranty claims? Welcome to the Banana Republic of America.
Yes, and of course the detail on the C/D website, which you don’t mention, shows Honda does not employ very bright people in their I/T department, and their lack of error checking is what cost the company $70 million. If you believe that excuse.
Welcome to the CJinSD OTT Honda is God mindset.
Are you really surprised. Hiding data and blaming inadvertent data entry issues for 11 years does stretch credibility. But then some people have a very black and white view of the world.
The self-reporting program that required manufacturers to be honest and with almost no oversight was not effective? Color me surprised. I thought all businesses were 100% honest and would always do the right thing even though it may cost their shareholders $0.01 per share in dividends.
I’ve heard stories of “secret” recalls at Honda.
So who gets to keep all this money and what exactly do they do with it?
Might be nice if the ppl or families allegedly injured by this were recipients of at least part of it…
How can one be allegedly injured by a failure of Honda to report it to the government? If I understand this right, it was a failure to report things that already happened, not a failure to report something that could happen. Like ” Hey government, Joe Schmo was killed in an accident in a Honda, that makes 200 for the year” not “Ohh, we’ve got a problem with our cars, if we hide it no one will ever know but more people might die in the future from the seame thing”.
Shows you how light GM got off on the ignition switch scandal; 10 year delayed recall with at least 13 dead, and proven cover up of defects, and half the fines compared to Honda’s which is mostly to do with the Takata airbag recalls.
The government also got $1.2 billion out of Toyota, which after all the drama was largely just floor mats (‘mechanical’ in NHTSA terms), electrical problems never being discovered even after being investigated by NASA.
Moreover, the $300 million fine against Hyundai-Kia for mileage discrepancies. Ford, at the same time, gets off without a single fine. NHTSA clearly doesn’t even try to hide their favoritism of American companies. Its understandable to want to strengthen your domestic rivals but its a double-edged sword.
Given the US, rightfully, complains against China and other nations for unfairly targeting foreign (largely American) companies for safety issues as a form of protectionism (see VW, McDonalds, KFC, Apple in China), these uneven handling of enforcement by the NHTSA gives ammunition for foreign countries wanting to keep in place their own protectionist enforcement regimes that target American companies.
Is this a great country or what… all the bias and none of the rhetoric.
We made junk, Japan capitalized on it and now they’re gonna pay, by God.
But I’ll bet at least 2/3rds the NHTSA staff owns J-3 products. Still, have to appease domestic lobbyists.
The GM fine situation isn`t resolved yet, wasn`t the last fine just an interim step?
People did die in the Toyota “mechanical” issue, so that has something to do with it.
I’m surprised it’s so low; I always thought this was a much bigger deal than the GM ignition switch issue. It’s not like Takata airbags have been used on the two best selling cars (Accord and Camry) for something like the last 15 years or anything like that…
Depending on whose numbers you believe, Takata airbags in Honda cars caused 6 injuries and 1 death, or as many as 2 deaths. This shakedown is over failure to effectively comply with a reporting system that the NHTSA wasn’t paying much attention to either. Honda did report the injuries and death due to Takate to the NHTSA through one of the NHTSA’s other reporting channels.
That just seems awfully low to me based on the number of vehicles out there, but what do I know?
Can’t blame the UAW for this, so watch it get quiet as Ebola ..