Jeffrey W. Runge, the agency's administrator, said in a statement that "the American public is well served by removing defective products from the road without delay," adding, "We are pleased Firestone has taken this approach in lieu of lengthy court proceedings, moving us quickly to a safe solution".
Requiring used-car dealers to make sure any recall work is completed before selling a vehicle would also take defective cars off the road, he said.
"All of these safety defects pose serious risks to CarMax customers and the general public when the defective cars are driven on California roads," the consumer groups said in a report released Wednesday.
Because of his tireless work, we have federal consumer protection laws and a federal department dedicated to the protection of our environment, and millions of defective motor vehicles are off the roads.
The real story is that defective products are still on the road because the agency's inadequate investigations prevented their exposure.
The increase in the number of young drivers has very likely played a role, experts say, and attention has been diverted to other issues, like road rage, cellphone use and defective tires.
"The report is a shocking and stunning indictment of the federal agency that is supposed to keep us safe on roads, and in fact enabled seriously defective devices to be installed across the United States," Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said in an interview on Thursday.
"We need to move people away from the mentality whereby they would rather pay a 1,000 franc (£1.25) bribe to a police officer for their defective brakes than get them fixed, even though they know they might have an accident 1km down the road".
The Defective Detectives.
