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Sen. Boxer to car rental companies: Promise not to rent recalled cars
A key Senate Democrat is calling for rental car companies to pledge not to rent cars that have been recalled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration because of safety concerns.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has filed a bill that would require car companies to pull recalled cars from their fleets. The measure is named after the victims of a 2004 accident involving a rental car that killed two people.
But Boxer said this week that the largest car rental companies should volunteer to abide by the rule ahead of the bill’s passage.
“As you know, I have joined Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) introducing S. 1445, the Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act, which would prohibit rental car companies from renting out or selling a vehicle under recall until it is repaired,” she wrote in letters to the leaders of Hertz, Enterprise, Avis and Dollar/Thrifty.
“I am writing to all of the major rental car companies and urging them to voluntarily adopt this policy by making the following pledge: ‘Effective immediately, our company is making a permanent commitment to not rent out or sell any vehicles under safety recall until the defect has been remedied,’” Boxer continued. “I challenge [rental companies] to make this commitment, in writing, to me and the NHTSA within the next 30 days. I intend to announce at that time which companies have agreed to make this pledge, and which companies have instead chosen to continue putting their customers’ lives at risk.”
“As a mother and grandmother myself, I cannot in good conscience stand by while rental car companies continue to rent out unsafe recalled cars to their customers,” she said in her letter.
“I ask you to put safety ahead of profits, and to join with me to put an end to this unsafe practice,” she concluded.
The Clifton Park, N.Y.-based lobbying group for the car rental industry has defended its handling of recalled calls.
“There are 1.6 million rental vehicles, including car-sharing, in service in the United States,” the American Car Rental Association says in a post about the safety issue on its website.
“Our industry has a long history of providing safe vehicles for our customers,” the ACRA post continues. "Nowhere is this more apparent than in our timely and comprehensive procedures for dealing with recalls.”
The car rental association said it has already adopted “more conservative standards for recalls than what the law requires or what is recommended by the auto manufacturers."
“Proponents of regulating the rental car industry’s management of safety recalls cite a need to ‘close a rental car loophole,’ ” the ACRA says on its website. “In fact, there is no such loophole. Rental car companies are not treated differently under the law versus all other vehicle owners and fleet operators. What is different is the industry’s focus on safety, which has resulted in billions of rentals over tens of billion of miles since 2004 without a single recall-related incident.”
Despite its defense of the car rental industry, the ACRA says it is “ready to work with any government agency or legislative body to achieve improved recall completion rates for all vehicles on the roadways.”
