over the past decade, general motors has been aware that over a million of their cars on the road potentially had a fatal glitch. an ignition switch that could suddenly turn off the engine and airbag system while the car was driving. as early as 2004, gm knew of at least one incident where this happened. an engineer found that something as simple as a weighted key chain could cause the cobalt to lose power. solutions to fix the flaw were rejected by gm after consideration of the lead time required cost and effectiveness of each of these solutions. in 2005, a gm engineer proposed a redesign to fix the flaw. those plans were scrapped. instead, gm sent out a service bulletin to its dealerships warning drivers not to use heavy key chains. in the summer of 2005, 16-year-old amber marie rose was killed after the airbag in her chevy cobalt failed to activate.
motors has been aware that over a million of their cars on the road potentially had a fatal glitch. an ignition switch that could suddenly turn off the engine and airbag system while the car was driving. as early as 2004, gm knew of at least one incident where this happened. an engineer found that something as simple as a weighted key chain could cause the cobalt to lose power. solutions to fix the flaw were rejected by gm after consideration of the lead time required cost and effectiveness of each of these solutions. in 2005, a gm engineer proposed a redesign to fix the flaw. those plans were scrapped. instead, gm sent out a service bulletin to its dealerships warning drivers not to use heavy key chains. in the summer of 2005, 16-year-old amber marie rose was killed after the airbag in her chevy cobalt failed to activate.
the justice department is investigating how general motors handled a deadly defect in some of its compact cars, specifically is the company criminally liable for failing to properly disclose the problem and issue a recall? abc s rebecca jarvis has more. reporter: it is a potentially fatal flaw linked to 13 deaths and 31 crashes. among them, this crash in wisconsin that killed two girls in 2005. this one in maryland that killed 16-year-old amber marie rose that same year. this was our girl, you know, and we ve got to get the word out. reporter: gm already called 1.6 million cars from model years 2003 to 2007 including the chevy cobalt, sat irn ion, chevrolet hhr, pontiac solstice. in those recalls the problem was with the ignition which could turn off unexpectedly, shting
and they said they would be willing to buy one. the justice department is investigating how general motors handled a deadly defect in some of its compact cars, specifically is the company criminally liable for failing to properly disclose the problem and issue a recall? abc s rebecca jarvis has more. reporter: it is a potentially fatal flaw linked to 13 deaths and 31 crashes. among them, this crash in wisconsin that killed two girls in 2005. this one in maryland that killed 16-year-old amber marie rose that same year. this was our girl, you know, and we ve got to get the word out. reporter: gm already recalled 1.6 million cars from model years 2003 to 2007 including the chevy cobalt, saturn ion, chevrolet hhr, pontiac solstice and saturn sky. in those recalls the problem was with the ignition which could turn off unexpectedly, shutting down both the car and its safety
and is there a reason this was allowed? you know, amber marie rose, in a car accident july 2005, the ignition switch, from running the car to running the radio, this would go straight to the national highway traffic safety administration, they start to investigate. over a nine-year period, they get 164 complaints about the coal ballot. now, here s here s the funny thing about the colbalt. they want gm to be held accountable. but why did they let this go through? was it about the bailout? you raise a brilliant people, to charles, and i extend the bailouts i m against them the whole period, i was against the bank bailouts, because i didn t like the slippery slope idea of any institution could sense from that that the government always had its back if it was in trouble. leaving that aside, it s not as