Failure to Launch

I like General Motors cars.  I don't think I'll ever buy one, though.

The government recently got GM to pay a fine $35 million to settle a probe into the automaker's decade-long delay into doing something about ignition-switch failures that GM had known about since 2004.  The ignition switches would shut off while driving, and so caused airbags, anti-lock brakes and power steering to become disabled if the key was too heavy. The problem caused the deaths of thirteen people, and it affects 2.6 million vehicles.

"We have learned a great deal from this recall,” new GM CEO Mary Barra, said in response. “We will now focus on the goal of becoming an industry leader in safety."

Apparently, their focus has resulted in recalls of 2.7 million more vehicles.   The affected vehicles include Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Pontiac, and Saturn vehicles made from the 2004 model year all the way to the 2015 model year (and it's only May 2014).  The specific cars and light trucks affected are so many, the problems so vast - one of which has caused GM to urge motorists to stop driving them until they can be inspected  and fixed - and the numbers are so staggering that, rather than list them here, it's easier for me to just link this post to an article with all the details.  

I'm beginning to wonder if maybe the taxpayers' money spent to bail out GM, even though we got it all back, would have been better off spent on rebuilding or public transportation system and maybe bringing back the interurban light rail lines GM dismantled in the 1950s to sell more cars.  We probably would have been able to move more people for less money.