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Pennsylvania House of Representatives
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?chamber=H&SPick=20170&cosponId=22437
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House of Representatives
Session of 2017 - 2018 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted: January 24, 2017 12:30 PM
From: Representative Madeleine Dean
To: All House members
Subject: VIN Recall Search During Annual Vehicle Inspections (former HB 2297)
 
In the near future, I will be introducing legislation as part of a package of vehicle consumer protection bills with Rep. Sims. My legislation – former House Bill 2297 – will amend the vehicle code to require inspection agents to perform a Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) recall search as a part of the inspection process. If there is a recall on a particular vehicle, the inspection agent would be required to notify the owner of the vehicle. The presence of an outstanding recall notice would not necessitate failure of a vehicle to pass inspection.

Recently, the largest automotive recall in history centered around the defective Takata Corp. air bags that are found in millions of vehicles that are manufactured by BMW, Chrysler, Daimler Trucks, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru and Toyota.

As of January 2017, 11 people in the U.S. have died from injuries suffered as a result of a defective Takata airbag. Hundreds more around the world have been injured by exploding inflators. The deaths have spurred millions of airbag recalls worldwide, including 42 million vehicles in the U.S alone.

Fortunately, car manufacturers and most car dealers in the U.S. are attempting to inform car owners of the recalls, but there are always issues with car transfers, forwarding addresses or misplaced mail. It is my understanding that the dealer is only obligated to send out a notice once to the car owner. Therefore as a back-up or a reminder at the time of the annual vehicle inspection would enhance consumer protection and safety. The NHTSA offers free online VIN checks at their Safecar.gov website (https://vinrcl.safercar.gov/vin/) so there will no additional financial burden to the vehicle inspector.

I hope you will join me co-sponsoring this important piece of consumer protection legislation. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact my office.



Introduced as HB1182