New Rental Car Safety Law Likely to Pass

You wouldn’t want a car dealer to sell you a vehicle that is subject to a recall. You wouldn’t want to rent such a car either. But as things stand now, car rental companies can give you a recalled vehicle without saying a word.

That is likely to change however, as a bill recently passed in the U.S. House of Representatives would make it illegal for car rental companies to give customers a car that is part of a known recall.

The “Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act” is named after a pair of California sisters were killed when their rental car, which had been recalled, fatally malfunctioned.

The Act would require car rental companies to “ground” any cars, vans, trucks, or other vehicles in their fleets if they are subject to a federal safety recall and to repair the defect that is the subject of the recall prior to renting or selling the vehicle. As the bill currently is written, rental fleets with 35 or fewer cars are exempt from the provisions in the Act

The bill was supported by the rental industry’s trade association, the American Car Rental Association, which said that a uniform national standard was needed: “Because rental vehicles travel freely across state lines in interstate commerce, ACRA has always strongly supported one federal rental vehicle safety recall standard rather than a patchwork of potentially conflicting state laws.”

The bill passed in the House in November with increasingly rare bipartisan support and the same is ultimately expected in the Senate. President Obama is likely to sign the bill into law if it makes it to his desk.

Any efforts to keep dangerous or recalled vehicles off the road should be applauded, and this proposed law will hopefully save lives.

At The Parian Law Firm in metro Atlanta, Georgia, we represent injury victims exclusively and are committed to getting justice and compensation for our clients. Please contact us at (770) 727-5550 or chat live online with a member of our staff today.