Transportation Secretary Federico F. Pena said yesterday that a two-year Federal investigation of
4.5 million older General Motors Corporation pickup trucks had found that the trucks posed a fire hazard when hit from the side because of the placement of their fuel tanks.
Mr. Pena also said that evidence reviewed during the Government's inquiry suggested that the No. 1 auto maker knew before it sold the trucks beginning in 1973 that placing the fuel tanks outside the pickups' body frame could pose a danger, but it went ahead and sold them anyway. Since then, Federal officials estimated yesterday, some 150 people might have died needlessly in fiery crashes because the original placement of the tanks allowed them to be easily punctured during side-impact crashes.
"G.M. management in place at that time appears to have made a decision favoring sales ahead of safety," Mr. Pena said at a news conference in Washington yesterday.
In trading on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, G.M. stock closed at $46.625, down 75 cents.
Link for above.
A former engineer for the General Motors Corporation told a jury here today that company officials believed in 1983 that the fire-safety design of some of its pickup trucks was "no longer defensible."
The engineer, Ronald E. Elwell, who worked for the auto maker for about 30 years as a safety specialist, also said that some top engineers at G.M. had decided by 1983 that the vehicles' fuel tanks had to be altered. But the company did not change the design until 1988.
Mr. Elwell gave his testimony in a lawsuit here brought against G.M. by the parents of Shannon Moseley, who was killed in 1989 at age 17 when the pickup he was driving was struck in the side and erupted in flames. G.M. has maintained that his death was caused either by injuries sustained in the collision or in a fire unrelated to the fuel tanks. 300 Attributed Deaths
Mr. Elwell's testimony is attracting attention because he has never testified against G.M. about the fuel tanks, and as a result of the settlement of a lawsuit he filed against G.M. he is restricted from testifying in other cases.
Link for aboveA state court jury today held the General Motors Corporation responsible for the death of a Georgia teen-ager in the fiery crash of one of its pickups, finding that the company had known that the trucks had a defective fuel-tank design but that it had failed to correct the problem. The case has been closely watched by the car industry and safety experts.
Already reeling from more than $10 billion in losses in the last seven quarters and the resignation last year of its chairman, Robert C. Stempel, G.M. now faces negative publicity and possible economic fallout from the Georgia case.
A former G.M. safety expert testified at the trial that the company had intentionally misled the public about a dangerous safety problem. Besieged by ProblemsG.M.'s stock closed today at $37.75, down $1.375, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained almost 43 points. The news of the jury's award came a day after the auto maker announced disappointing January car sales and saw its credit rating lowered because of huge pension obligations.
They flat out know their trucks were death traps and kept right on selling them. Link for aboveHow many did GM KILL???? I bet the people left behind don't give a rats $$$ how long ago it was, would you?
Don
