For more than a week we have been learning details of what may be one of the biggest recalls in automotive history. The potential car accidents linked to it are especially scary because the recall is focused on one of the most basic safety features of modern automobiles: the airbags.…
An article published in Friday’s New York Times brings the issue of General Motors and its massive recalls sharply back into focus. It tells the story of a 27-year-old Virginia woman who died in a car crash only days after receiving a recall notice on her 2006 Saturn. That notice…
On Friday General Motors announced yet another expansion of the widening recall of its small cars. According to the New York Times, the company “is expanding its ignition-switch recall to include an additional 971,000 small cars worldwide, including 824,000 in the United States, that may have been previously repaired with…
Yesterday’s announcement that Toyota has reached a settlement with the Justice Department was striking on several accounts. First there is the settlement’s sheer size. “Toyota will pay a $1.2 billion penalty to settle the criminal probe into its handling of unintended acceleration problems that led to recalls of 8.1 million…
A disturbing article published this week in the New York Times outlines a series of failures by both corporate America and the federal government. Its focus is General Motors’ recent recall notices involving well over a million vehicles manufactured since the 2003 model year (click here for GM’s latest news…
With barely two weeks to go until election day voters in Washington won a victory this week even before they go to the polls to decide the fate of Initiative 522. According to an article published Friday in The Oregonian a major opponent of the GMO-labeling initiative bowed to pressure…
Relatives of a Bend man who died in 2010 while using an inversion therapy table have filed a lawsuit in federal court in Eugene against the Washington-based manufacturer of the table, according to a recent article in The Oregonian. According to the newspaper, the lawsuit alleges that the 64-year-old Oregon…
An Associated Press story published yesterday on The Oregonian’s website should grab the attention of many Oregon motorists concerned about both Oregon traffic safety and Oregon defective products issues. According to the news agency, the federal government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration “says it will investigate problems with stalling or…
The Oregonian noted this afternoon that the FBI is asking people across the United States to contact it regarding illnesses traceable to tainted peanuts. The case began in 2009 with an investigation by the Food and Drug Administration which found a Georgia plant run by Peanut Corporation of America (PCA)…
An article published this week in the online magazine Slate makes a compelling case that the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an organization many of us think of as an important guardian of Americans’ safety and rights, could do a lot more to make its own workings transparent. The article begins…