Ontario announced this week that it would be the first Canadian province to allow autonomous driving on its roads (although maybe not autonomous Volts) and it would make insurance companies discount policies for owners who have winter tires.

The programs were announced Tuesday and Wednesday by the ministries of finance and transportation in the province.

Ontario would join a handful of U.S. states that allow autonomous cars, including California and Michigan, on its roads for testing. According to the statement announcing the program, companies developing autonomous cars can begin applying for permits next month.

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A study commissioned by Bloomberg, conducted by Stout Risius Ross, revealed that Volkswagen’s rate of injury or fatal crashes reported by the automaker was significantly lower than 11 other automakers and nine times less than the industry average.

“The data demonstrates that even on a fleet-adjusted basis, the number of reported incidents by Volkswagen is significantly below what one would expect based on those reported by other automakers,” Neil Steinkamp, a Stout Risius managing director, told Bloomberg. “They are also significantly below the reporting of automakers that have already been cited for non-compliance.”

The report calls into question whether Volkswagen has been accurately reporting crashes, as required by law. Volkswagen didn’t comment on the report. Read More >

Mazda stopped selling and delivering 2015 and 2016 Mazda3s built between May 21 and Aug. 24, the automaker announced Tuesday. A faulty fuel shut-off value may lead to fuel being pumped into the charcoal emissions canister, which could lead to leakage, engine stalls and possible fire.

The stop sale and recall affects 14,270 vehicles in the U.S. and 136 vehicles in Puerto Rico.

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Fiat Chrysler Automobiles admitted Tuesday it hasn’t accurately reported required early warning report data to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The safety administration said that warning data includes “significant under-reported notices and claims of death, injuries and other information.”

According to the automaker, FCA self-reported its violations to NHTSA as part of its increased scrutiny after a record $105 million fine and consent order that FCA agreed to in July. Under the order, FCA agreed to have an independent monitor review its recalls for at least two years. Read More >

We recently featured the story of a woman in Indiana who, frightened by a spider alighting on her shoulder, bolted from her car while it was still in reverse, resulting in a collision with a passing school bus and minor injuries to her son, who was in the back seat at the time. Now comes word that a Michigan man managed to deal with his arachnophobia by setting his car and a gasoline pump aflame when he was frightened by a spider while refueling his car. Read More >

Speaking at an event in suburban Detroit, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief Mark Rosekind said Volkswagen’s admission that they lied about emissions in their diesel cars erodes confidence in automakers.

“They tell you one thing, you question it,” Rosekind said to reporters, according to Automotive News. “You just have to question every assumption when information is provided.”

Recent scandals including VW, hackable cars and airbag defects erode consumer confidence and that more must be done by automakers before cars go on sale, he said.

“Accountability in leadership is literally at the top of the list, and we’ve just got to be out front, acting, talking and doing everything we can to demonstrate that it should be in their genes,” Rosekind said, according to Automotive News.

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Two sources have told Reuters that the government will levy a $900 million fine on General Motors for its failure to recall and subsequent attempts to cover-up of faulty ignition switches linked to at least 124 deaths.

Criminal charges will be filed against GM for its role in hiding the defect from regulators, but will defer prosecution while the automaker complies with its penalty. The agreement is expected to be announced Thursday.

The massive fine is smaller than the $1.2 billion Toyota paid in March 2014 for its role in concealing that its cars could accelerate suddenly.   Read More >

Safety technology tends to have a trickle-down journey. ABS, airbags, and other technologies we now take for granted have slowly bee adopted over the years and are now standard equipment. The next technology to join that group might be automatic braking — or autobrake — depending on from what company you buy your next new car.

Ten automakers, along with the NHTSA and IIHS, have agreed to make automatic braking standard on their cars going forward.

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This has not been a banner summer for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. In the past 90 days, FCA has recalled nearly 4 million cars and trucks for various issues including hackable cars, volatile fuel tanks, faulty airbags and now, in some of its Ram trucks, airbags with minds of their own.

In a statement Thursday, FCA said it was recalling more than 1 million pickups for a faulty steering wheel wiring harness that could rub against a spring and deploy the driver’s side airbag. The company said it was aware of two injuries related to the airbag deployment. Ram trucks — all models — made between 2012-2014 are affected by the recall. More than 235,000 trucks in Canada will be recalled as well.

In addition, FCA is recalling roughly 350,000 trucks for faulty welds and non-compliant side-curtain airbags.

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Slate has a story about hit-and-run crashes in China that proves that truth is usually stranger than fiction.

Geoffrey Sant, who teaches law at Fordham and is on the board of the New York Chinese Cultural Center, details a trend among Chinese drivers to kill the people they hit with their cars to keep from paying millions in medical costs over their lifetimes. Often, the drivers plead ignorance — that they thought it was a bag of trash, or a box — and rarely serve significant jail sentences.

Incidents captured on video show drivers sometimes backing over their victims several times to insure that they’ve been killed, according to the report.

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Seven spectators are dead after a rally car plunged Saturday into a crowd of 20 people, killing at least seven and injuring at least 12 more, media outlets are reporting.

The BBC reported that six people were initially dead after the crash in the province of Galicia, which is in northwest Spain. The Daily Mail reported that a young girl who was severely injured in the crash died from her injuries Saturday night.

The La Coruna rally was immediately cancelled after the deadly crash.

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AutoNation won’t sell any cars with open recalls, used or new, at its dealerships, according to Automotive News.

AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson said the costly policy would mean that roughly 5 percent to 10 percent of cars on its lots would be unsellable at any one time. The change in policy for AutoNation comes while different bills work their way through Congress that could prohibit used car dealers to sell cars without recall repair work.

“The recall situation for the U.S. auto industry is a black eye. It is a dysfunctional nightmare that the industry should be ashamed of, and customers are right to be angry and confused,” Jackson told Automotive News. “As part of the industry, we have to hold a mirror up and say, ‘What can we do better as a company?'”

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Self-driving cars could usher in a new form of terrorism, an investment analyst writes (via SlashDot).

Alex Rubalcava, who is an investment advisor in California, says that autonomous cars would be “the greatest force multiplier to emerge in decades for criminals and terrorists.

“A future Timothy McVeigh will not need to drive a truck full of fertilizer to the place he intends to detonate it. A burner email account, a prepaid debit card purchased with cash, and an account, tied to that burner email, with an AV car service will get him a long way to being able to place explosives near crowds, without ever being there himself.”

Criminals in Denver have already used burners, pre-paid cards and fake names to rent Car2go cars for drive-by shootings.

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating complaints that gear selector handles on Jeep Grand Cherokees may slip out of park and cause the car to roll away, Automotive News is reporting.

Owners have detailed several complaints to NHTSA who said their Grand Cherokees rolled away while parked, including one person in Michigan who said a child was injured exiting the rollaway vehicle.

A similar transmission selector was used in the 2014 Chrysler 300. An owner complained of a similar problem in that car, where it rolled away and crashed into two other vehicles.

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Former and current drivers have called on IndyCar officials to review safety equipment in place after racer Justin Wilson died Monday from injuries suffered Sunday at Pocono Raceway, Reuters is reporting.

Wilson was struck in the head by debris from a car that crashed ahead of him, driven by Sage Karam. The incident was similar to accidents in other race series with open cockpits; Felipe Massa was hit by debris in Hungary in 2009 and required surgery, James Hinchcliffe was struck in the head in 2014, which caused a concussion. Wilson’s death was the first for IndyCar since Dan Wheldon was killed in 2011.

“Safety is not one of those things that because you have a clear record for a certain amount of time that you stop doing development,” former race driver Eddie Cheever told ESPN.

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