The alarm bells first went off at the Center for Auto Safety on Feb. 13, when General Motors announced a recall of more than 780,000 model year 2005-2007 Cobalts and Pontiac G5s with faulty ignition switches. Those ignition switches were so sensitive that even a slight jostle or heavy key ring could immediately shut down the vehicle’s power steering and brakes and prevent air bags from inflating to protect the driver and front seat passenger in case of a crash. What really caught the auto safety watchdog’s eye was GM’s disclosure that six people had died in crashes related to the ignition problem. “I said, ‘Six deaths? That’s a lot,’” Clarence Ditlow, the long-time executive director of the center, recalled this week. “The average recall doesn’t have a single death let alone six.”Two weeks later, GM added 842,000 Ion compacts (model years 2003-2007), and Chevrolet HHR SUVs and Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky sports cars (2006-2007) to the list of cars being recalled for the ignition switch problem. Now GM was saying the number of fatalities had been revised upward to 12. By then, Ditlow and his colleagues at the Washington-based auto safety center that had been co-founded by consumer advocate Ralph Nader were on the case. The revelation of GM’s extraordinarily lengthy delay in recalling the faulty cars had the whiff of scandal to it, according to Ditlow, who is no stranger to high-profile auto industry controversies and cover-ups.
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