Companies Protest Nhtsa Study That Led To Proposed Rental Car Safety Legislation

Last week, the California car accident attorneys at our firm had blogged about a new piece of legislation that has been introduced by New York Sen. Charles Schumer, to reduce the risk of accidents caused by defective rental cars. Now, the three major rental car agencies in the US have written a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, finding faults with an NHTSA study that had been used by Sen. Schumer as a basis for the proposed bill.

According to Sen. Schumer, he was inspired by the study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and used it while drafting the legislation, called the Safe Rental Car Act. Loopholes in current laws allow rental car companies to continue to rent out vehicles that have been recalled by automakers, while automakers themselves are not allowed to sell cars once they're on the recall list. This loophole has meant millions of rental car customers are at risk when they rent vehicles that have already been recalled by automakers. According to Sen. Schumer, rental car companies must be barred from renting out cars that would not be allowed to be displayed in auto dealer lots or showrooms.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study that Sen. Schumer based his bill on, compared rates of repairs of recalled cars as made by the major rental car companies in the US. The study analyzed General Motors and Chrysler recalls that had been announced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration between June 2006 and July 2010. The study involved three major rental car companies-Enterprise Rent-a-Car which also owns the National and Alamo brands, Avis Rent-a-Car and Hertz. The study found that Enterprise fixed about 65% of the recalled cars before renting them out. Avis/Budget repaired just 53% of the cars before renting them out, while Hertz Rent-A-Car repaired just 32% of the recalled cars before renting them out.

The three rental car companies have found fault with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data. They have written a letter to the federal agency, alleging that the statistics provided to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration by the rental car company was not up-to-date.

The accident risks caused when Americans who have no idea that the car that they have rented has been recalled, drive these vehicles, have been under the spotlight since the deaths of two California sisters in 2004. The sisters had been traveling in a Chrysler PT Cruiser that they had rented from Enterprise. Unknown to the sisters, the car had been recalled by Chrysler at least one year earlier, because of a steering problem that could pose a fire hazard. When the car crashed into a tractor-trailer, it exploded into flames, and the two sisters were killed. The family filed a lawsuit against Enterprise which they won after a jury awarded them $15 million in damages