Issues With Recall Notifications Are Starting to Be Addressed

When cars have defects, this can create major problems. A car that doesn't work properly can be a safety risk to the drivers and to others on the road. Taking car of car repairs can also be a big hassle for owners. Having repeated issues with a vehicle is seen as such a big problem that there are actually laws in place to protect buyers of new cars who find themselves in this situation. A California lemon law lawyer can help car owners to understand the protections that are in place and to pursue a legal remedy if they have trouble with their vehicles.

Sometimes, it is not just one car that has problems – it's lots of cars of a particular make or model. The cars may have all been released with defective parts or with a design defect that prevents their safe and effective operation.  When this happens, the car manufacturer likely will recall the vehicle – either voluntarily or because of actions by federal regulators – and drivers will be given the opportunity to get the problem with the vehicles repaired, typically without any cost to them.

Vehicle recalls are very common, with millions of recalls happening each year. There's a problem with the recall process though: many car owners do not actually get repairs made on their defective vehicles. There are lots of reasons why this happens, but one big reason is that not all drivers who own vehicles actually find out that their car has a recall. Drivers may not get proper notice, or may have bought their car used and may have assumed that any recalls that needed to be done were taken care of already.

Because drivers who have vehicles with open recalls are in potential danger if they don't know about the recall and get it repaired, Maryland has decided to take steps to ensure that motorists are alerted if there's a recall on a vehicle they own.

Maryland Will Notify Drivers of Recalls

According to CBS Local Baltimore, Maryland has taken an unprecedented step to address the problem of drivers not being made aware when their vehicles are subject to a recall. The state of Maryland itself will now be required to provide drivers with notice when recalls occur.

The new initiative is part of a pilot program that was funded by a grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).  The program will make use of the vehicle registration process in order to alert drivers to the fact that their car has a recall. When drivers are sent a reminder in the mail to renew their registration, that reminder will come with a notification about the open recall on their vehicles.

The hope is that this will help to ensure more cars are fixed. As many as one in three cars on the roads in the U.S. currently have unfixed recalls, which is a big danger to everyone.

Unfortunately, this new process doesn't fix problems of defective vehicles experienced by individual car buyers whose cars turn out to have unexpected issues. This means even if the pilot program expands to California, many drivers will  still need to talk with a California lemon law lawyer about their options for dealing with their vehicle issues.