Press Release

Safety Consultant Blames Chrysler NHTSA for Poor Response to Recall

11/18/96

NHTSA Hiding Failure of Chrysler Van Latch Replacement Scheme


WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 -- For weeks NHTSA has refused to
release a Chrysler report revealing that 2.5 million Chrysler minivans
with defective latches remain on the highway -- 18 months after
Chrysler agreed to replace the 4.1 million defective latches. The
report shows NHTSA's scheme to give a clean bill of health to latches
on millions of minivans is a dismal failure, according to Ralph Hoar,
the Arlington Virginia safety consultant who had pressed NHTSA to
declare the rear liftgate latches defective.

"The poor replacement rate is predictable given that the government
agency we depend on for safe vehicles and Chrysler have refused to
declare that the latches are defective." According to Hoar, the
Chrysler report that NHTSA is sitting on reveals that 18 months after
Chrysler announced it would launch it's voluntary replacement
campaign, less than 40 percent of the latches have been replaced.
Chrysler's third quarterly report to the government shows that latches
have been replaced on only 1.6 million of the 4.1 million Chrysler
vans on the road. "Rather than hiding the report, NHTSA and Chrysler
should hide their faces in shame," Hoar said.

In March of 1995, when Chrysler announced it would replace the
latches, the automaker launched a multi-million dollar multi-media
campaign to convince the public that the only thing wrong with the
latches was bad press. That media campaign and NHTSA's refusal to
declare the latches defective has had a disastrous effect on the
consumer response rate to the replacement campaign. "Both NHTSA and
Chrysler are guilty of lulling van owners into complacency with 'PR
Prozac,'" Hoar said.

NHTSA should tell the public as clearly as it told Chrysler in
November 1994: "THE LATCH FAILURE IS A SAFETY DEFECT THAT INVOLVES
CHILDREN."

NHTSA stopped counting deaths associated with Chrysler minivan latch
failures in July 1995. At that time the agency knew of 37 deaths --
mostly children. The number of deaths and injuries attributable to
latch failure since that date are unknown.

According to Hoar, a Palestine, Texas minivan case scheduled to go to
trial in mid-November will likely refocus national attention on the
issue. The case involves a high school cheerleader who became a
paraplegic after being thrown from the rear of a Chrysler minivan when
the latch failed. It is expected to be the first minivan latch case to
get to trial. Chrysler is known to have settled more than 40 of these
cases. It is believed that some settlements have exceeded $10 million.

Ralph Hoar & Associates can provide a copy of the Chrysler report, and
the November 1994 NHTSA document calling the latches defective.