Auto safety chief hits road to urge reluctant drivers to get recall repairs

Under a blazing sun in a Florida college parking lot, employees of the US government’s auto safety regulator, Toyota Motor Corp and a tire industry trade group checked vehicles for recall notices, under-inflated tires and improperly installed child safety seats, among other safety problems.

Frustrated by the failure of many American motorists to take cars with safety defects to dealers for repairs, National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) chief Mark Rosekind on Tuesday began a political campaign-style swing through southern states to push American car owners to take better care of their vehicles.

“Shaking hands and kissing babies: our version is checking Vehicle Identification Numbers (VIN), tires and car seats,” Rosekind said in an interview at the tour’s second event in Orlando, Florida.

The first-of-its-kind nearly 1,500-mile, nine-stop trip over five days in a rented bus wrapped in NHTSA logos and safety messages, will take Rosekind from Miami to Fort Worth, Texas during the hottest time of the year.

Heat and humidity elevate the risk that vehicle airbags equipped with aging inflators made by Takata Corp could rupture and injure or kill occupants, the agency has found.

Automakers have recalled more than 100 million vehicles in the last two years in the US. Consumers, however, have no legal obligation to get recalled vehicles fixed.

NHTSA has estimated that 20 percent to 30 percent of recalled vehicles are never brought back to dealerships for free repairs.

About half of vehicles checked in Miami on Tuesday and about half of 300 vehicles checked during an event in July in Atlanta showed uncompleted recalls, Rosekind said.

Latin dance music played at an early morning safety check event on the Florida International University (FIU) campus in Miami, drawing students, university employees and others.

Julian Martinez, 22, a graduate from the University of Chicago, drove in his mother’s 2008 Honda. NHTSA officials turned up an unrepaired Takata air bag inflator.

“I had never even heard of Takata,” he said.

Ana Tronholm, 35, and her husband, Niclas Engene, 38, both biologists at FIU, brought their eight-month-old daughter and their Nissan Altima replete with several “Baby on Board” signs.

Many motorists are unaware of recalls, especially owners of older used cars who rarely visit dealerships.

In August 2014, NHTSA’s safercar.gov website launched a search engine that allows motorists to check for uncompleted recalls by the VIN.