In the world of product safety, automotive products are heavily regulated, and must meet regulations to allow imports and sales. Then, once sold, manufacturers are required to monitor sold products for issues which arise during use for the life of the product.

Legislation does not stop once vehicles are certified. Most countries where automotive products are sold have legislation governing real world product safety. Examples of this legislation from different countries include the US National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, the General Product Safety Regulation in the UK and EU, and Regulations on Administration of the Recall of Defective Motor Vehicle Products in China to list but three.

Assessing Automotive Safety Defects

The legislation intends to provide protection to consumers and the “rules” that shall be followed where a product is found to be defective in an unsafe way. In general, the following are common elements in all regulations governing in-use automotive product safety:

• Existence of a Defect

A systemic problem in the performance, construction, material, manufacturing quality, or design of a motor vehicle or piece of motor vehicle equipment, that causes components to operate outside their intended parameters or fail prematurely during expected service life.

• Unreasonable Risk

Substantial evidence establishing that the identified defect exposes vehicle occupants, pedestrians, or other road users to a significant or high risk of accidents, severe injuries, or fatalities during normal and foreseeable vehicle operation.

• Failure Prevalence and Trend

A comprehensive quantitative analysis of the total number of failures. The rate of failure progression over time, distance in service, environmental exposure, and statistical projections.

• Severity of Consequences

The maximum potential degree of personal injury, loss of life, or severe property damage that could result if the component or system failure takes place under real-world driving conditions (e.g., high-speed highway transit, heavy traffic, or adverse weather).

• Exposure Frequency

An assessment of how regularly vehicles or specific components encounter the precise operational environments, climate conditions, duty cycles, or user behaviours that trigger the defect mechanism. Higher frequency of exposure increases the likelihood of widespread field failures.

• Controllability

The degree to which an average driver can reasonably perceive early warning signs, maintain control, execute evasive manoeuvres, or react safely when a failure occurs to avert a crash or minimise harm. Sudden, unannounced failures provide low controllability, increasing overall risk.

• Mitigating Factors

Existing safety buffers, redundancies, or conditions that reduce risk severity, including explicit warning lights/chimes directly related to a failure (contextual warning), predictable fail-safe modes, safe-stop capabilities, or clear routine maintenance procedures that allow detection prior to critical functional loss.

Interestingly, the cause of any defect is not needed to determine the presence of a safety defect. Although cause is needed to be assured that any remedy is effective. To make a decision about the presence of a safety defect one needs only to establish that a defect is present, it can occur in multiple products in operation, and that it can cause harm or hazard.

When is Recall Necessary?

Then – as if the above was not enough ­­- there are matters of company and industry precedent, market authority expectation, litigation risk, and reputational damage. Taking each in turn, here is how they play through deciding there is a defect, for which recall is needed.

Company Precedent

Easy to establish by past behaviours but can be changed from time to time due to new corporate perspectives, morality changes, leadership changes.

Industry Precedent

Can be found out through researching defects notified by other manufacturers, BUT the reasons for the decision are not always clearcut. Only those on the inside know the full story.

Market Authority Expectation

Many countries have an agency that provides oversight to the automotive industry. In the UK for instance  this is the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA). Across the UK and EU it is a legal requirement for the national government to assign a Market Surveillance Agency. This tends to be the case throughout many countries. For example, the equivalent body in the US is the National Highways Transport Safety Administration (NHTSA).

This is where there can be notable differences that impact the determination of a safety defect. When mitigating factors exist, such as an obvious warning lamp of a problem, some authorities consider this to be suitable and adequate – there is no un-warned safety defect present. When the warning lamp comes on, the owner knows to take the vehicle for repair. This DOES NOT mean that there is no safety defect present.

Some market authorities do not accept the suitability and adequacy of an overt and contextual warning. Some consider an overt warned failure, such as a warning lamp, to be an indicator of the presence of a safety defect. So deciding if a product has a safety defect does depend on the country and the interpretations used by the market authority. Just because a matter is not considered a safety defect does not mean that proactive remedial action cannot be taken.

Litigation Risk

Factors outside of the technical realm that may influence the decision to characterise a defect as a safety defect and execute a recall as a result include the risk of litigation. In effect, external non-technical factors where the least worst response is to recall. The growth in class action litigation (in England more formally known as Group Litigation Orders) outside of the US now plays an ever-growing part in decisions.

Reputational Damage

Not unlike litigation risks, reputational damage is also a growing part of factors to be considered by the decision makers. This tends now to be driven by social media based “shaming” and can be a precursor to class action litigation.

The observant may have noted there is no mention of cost in this article. It cannot be ignored but advice received and advice given here is that it should not be a factor in determining the presence of a safety defect. It can and perhaps should inform the suitability of remedy.

So, why recall..?

The overarching reason to recall is protection from harm and/or hazard. The nature of the harm or hazard should be – in order of priority – safety, compliance, litigation risk mitigation, and reduction in reputational harm.

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