'The GM nod,' 'The GM salute' and a clash of cultures

Safety, cost-containment and impenetrable decision-making

"We cannot conclude," the Valukas report reads, "that the atmosphere of cost-cutting had no impact on the failure of GM to resolve these issues earlier."

Mike Colias 
Automotive News
June 5, 2014

 

DETROIT -- Page 248 of Anton Valukas' report on what went wrong with General Motors' deadly ignition switch defect outlines how GM's safety efforts run smack into its cost-conscious culture.
Under the heading "Tone at the Top," the report tries to peg how much GM's culture -- in full-blown cost-cutting mode at the time the bad switches were installed in Chevrolet Cobalts and other small cars -- had to do with its handling of the defect.
The report, which relied in part on interviews of 230 employees, describes a troubling mixed message subtly conveyed by senior leadership: that safety is paramount, yet so is keeping a lid on costs.
"Repeated throughout the interview process we heard from GM personnel two somewhat different directives," the report reads. "When safety is an issue, cost is irrelevant" and "cost is everything."
The report provides a harsh rebuke of GM's infamous committee culture, too, one that on the ignition-switch issue rendered "determining the identity of an actual decision maker … impenetrable."
Some GM employees told investigators that they didn't take any notes during "critical safety meetings" because they didn't think lawyers wanted them to.
Investigators never found evidence of an edict banning note-taking. But "the no-notes direction … reached the status of an urban myth that was followed, an instruction passed from GM employee to GM employee over the years," the report reads.
One of the most colorful descriptions of the cultural morass came from CEO Mary Barra herself. She described for investigators a phenomenon known as the "GM nod."
"The GM nod, Barra described, is when everyone nods in agreement to a proposed plan of action, but then leaves the room with no intention of follow through," the report reads. "It is an idiomatic recognition of a culture that does not move issues forward quickly, as the story of the Cobalt demonstrates."
There was also the "GM salute," described by another interviewee as "a crossing of the arms and pointing outward toward others, indicating that the responsibility belongs to someone else, not me."
Ultimately, Valukas' report says it uncovered no evidence of any employee making "an explicit trade-off between safety and cost" related to the ignition switch. It notes that, because engineers early on failed to grasp a link between the ignition switch slipping out of the "run" position and airbags not deploying, the problem was treated as a customer-satisfaction issue, not a safety problem.
Still, "we cannot conclude," the report reads, "that the atmosphere of cost-cutting had no impact on the failure of GM to resolve these issues earlier."

Loophole in California law allows car dealers to sell used cars without repairing safety recalls first

Close loophole in California law that allows car dealers to sell used cars without repairing safety recalls first
Courage Campaign

Last October, David Clayton was driving 65 miles-an-hour down a highway in Fresno near his home. His newly purchased "certified" 2009 Dodge Ram was driving just fine, but all of a sudden, everything changed.

The drive train linking the engine with the rear axle literally broke off. The back wheels locked up, and the truck started bouncing -- yes, bouncing -- down the freeway. He somehow was able to wrestle the truck to the side of the highway without colliding with another vehicle. He soon learned his “certified” used truck was actually a ticking time bomb.

Chrysler had recalled it because it would literally fall apart without warning. But because of a loophole in California law, car dealers are allowed to sell used cars without repairing safety recalls first.

Fight to get killer used cars repaired before dealers can sell them to consumers. Send an email to your California Assemblymember to support Senate Bill 686 by Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson.(1)

Shockingly, millions of us are driving cars with open safety recalls. An analysis by CarFax shows that 36 million cars on the road right now -- or roughly one in seven -- are subject to a safety-related recall but have never been repaired.(2) Good Morning America and other news organizations have gone undercover to investigate, catching car dealers telling consumers that used cars are "safe" and passed rigorous inspections, when they're actually ticking time bombs.(3)

It's obvious that the law needs to change, but David can't win this fight alone. The car dealers are lobbying furiously because they don't want to bother repairing the cars before they make another sale. The next victim could be you, or someone you love, even if you don't buy a recalled used car. You share the road with these cars every day.

SIGN THE PETITION and tell your representative in Sacramento to support SB 686 to require dealers to repair used cars that are under a federal safety before they can sell them to consumers! As an added bonus, passing the law will create at least 1,000 new jobs in California for auto technicians who perform safety recall repairs.

The only way we are going to be able to change this, is if we have the support of courageous Californians like you to push this law forward NOW. Polling shows that 88% of California voters support closing this auto safety loophole(4), but the car dealers are one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Sacramento and managed to stall the bill a year ago.

Help keep Californians and their families safe from killer recalled cars, by telling our state leaders to support SB 686.

Does George Zimmerman’s car hero story add up?

George Zimmerman was never mentioned until days after this SUV turned over. Then the policeman who reported the accident, and Zimmerman himself, began to mention the connection. The policeman was an enormous fan of Mr. Zimmerman.

Does George Zimmerman’s car hero story add up?
These conspiracy theorists are convinced Trayvon Martin's killer staged a car crash to boost his beleaguered image
By Alex Seitz-Wald
Salon.com
Jul 26, 2013

It seemed stranger than fiction, as even his lawyer acknowledged, that George Zimmerman’s first appearance just days after he was acquitted for the killing of Trayvon Martin would be to rescue a nice family of four from their overturned SUV. But that’s what reportedly happened on July 17, leading his defenders to call him a hero and some critics to claim the event was a hoax aimed at boosting his popularity.

It does seem like an odd coincidence: Zimmerman just happened to be on the scene of the crash at the right moment, and happened to have a fire extinguisher with him to put out the flaming car. And now the family he saved abruptly canceled the press conference they had planned to thank Zimmerman. It’s all too much to believe for the Zimmerman Rescue Truthers, who emerged immediately after the news broke.

“Even if we had a videotape of the accident, they would still say it was made up. So you can’t really respond to people who just don’t want to listen to the truth,” Zimmerman defense attorney Mark O’Mara told CNN. “The idea that this was made up — it’s just the same people who refuse to accept the jury’s verdict, just want to be angry, just want to hate George Zimmerman, are still going to hate him.”

He’s probably right. As we’ve noted, conspiracy theories are basically impossible to stamp out. And in this case, the circumstances are just too weird, and the potential public relations benefit for Zimmerman — and thus the perceived incentive to stage the scene — too obvious to explain away for those who are upset about the verdict. Fox News, whose opinion hosts have pretty openly sided with Zimmerman, reported that at an NAACP meeting, “there was a lot — a lot — of skepticism, people saying they don’t believe a word of this.”

“Zimmerman can pull someone from a burning car, but he can’t a push 17-year-old, 150 pound boy off of him?” asked one tweeter. On Twitter, the skeptics appeared to be be predominantly liberal and disproportionately minorities — the same kinds of people who have been pushing for harsher punishment of Zimmerman all along — while others questioned the police officers involved.

“There’s something fishy about this #Zimmerman Rescue,” another person tweeted. “Feels too perfectly timed and convenient.”

One blog advancing the conspiracy narrative that went viral posted screen shots of what appears to be the Facebook page of the officer who responded to the crash, which shows that he posted numerous photos and messages supporting Zimmerman days before and after the accident. Most criticized the media and liberals who turned the case into a race issue. “If Trayvon Martin had been killed in Afghanistan, Barack Obama wouldn’t even know his name,” reads one popular image macro the officer posted. Yet the officer, who posted about other activities of his duty life, didn’t post anything about his run in with Zimmerman. The only reference to the accident was a few days later, when he linked to a local news story and wrote, “I sorta made the news…”

That conspiracy blog even claims that it has a source, whom it does not identify, who saw phone records showing that the officer alerted Zimmerman about the crash before authorities arrived so Zimmerman could end up in the police report and look like a hero. We asked the unnamed blogger for more info about his or source, but the blogger didn’t respond.

Theorists have also speculated that Zimmerman might have a police scanner, given his work as a neighborhood watchman and his current fear for his own safety, and that he used it to respond to the crash before authorities could get there.

They also wonder why none of the multiple 9-1-1 calls mention Zimmerman, though some mention two men on the scene, and why O’Mara says his client didn’t mention the crash when they met the next day. And why none of the family members in the crash mentioned the crash on their Facebook or Twitter pages. And why are there no photos of the crash? All the data points don’t really make sense together — was the entire crash staged, or did Zimmerman show up to intentionally take credit for saving the family? — but various skeptics differ on how much of the accident they think was staged.

Still, even O’Mara acknowledged that the whole thing is a bit weird. “I will acknowledge it was coincidental four or five days after the verdict, but it was not set up, or staged. Really, do you think we would’ve set up a family of four on the side (of the road), destroying an SUV?” the defense lawyer told a local TV station.

The family Zimmerman helped save, he said, didn’t feel comfortable coming forward given all the heat on Zimmerman at the moment. Indeed, TV news trucks have been staked out near their house, much to their dismay, but in refusing to speak with the press, even just to confirm that Zimmerman was on the scene, they’ve helped fuel the conspiracy narrative.