Rented Car Accidents in Oklahoma May Be Due to Unrepaired Recalls by Rental Companies
For professionals who travel frequently on business, the idea of being involved in a rental car accident while away from home is a continual possibility. When we’re in new cities, just driving away from a busy airport car rental lot can be daunting. New reports about car rental companies choosing not to do repair the vehicles they own which have been recalled make the prospect of driving a business trip car rental even more unnerving. I could mean rental car accident injuries while attending a business conference.
According to recent media report, Senator Barbara Boxer has asked car rental companies to make a public promise “not to rent or sell any vehicles under safety recall until the defect has been remedied.” The only company that took her up on her challenge was Hertz; all their competitors declined to make any such pledge. For anyone who was thinking of renting a car from one of those other rental companies, there is new worry about defective rented car accident injuries.
The Tulsa, Oklahoma personal injury lawyers at Jeff Martin Law hope Hertz’s competitors rethink their decision and that consumers become more vigilant about checking out the cars they rent, before driving them off the car rental lot. Once you know what make and model you’re renting, for instance, you could go online and check for any car recalls it may have had imposed on it.
In a letter addressed to Sen. Boxer, Hertz said its pledge was aligned with a “long-standing Hertz policy.” New legislation sponsored by Sens. Boxer and Charles Schumer would make it a legally binding issue, so that it would be mandatory for car rental companies to stop renting recalled cars until necessary repairs have been made. Rosemary Shahan, president of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety says Hertz has been supporting efforts to write the policy into law.
Shahan says Avis Budget Group and Enterprise are among numerous rental car companies who are seeking to propose alternative legislation. One of the ways they want to change the language is so that it allows car rental companies to hold off on repairing recalled cars until it becomes “practicable”. Another possible modification to the legislation would let them only verbally apprise customers of needed repairs before rental agreements are signed.
Because Hertz has publicized their policies on this issue, they’ve set the bar for the car rental industry as a whole. Hopefully, car rental company competitors will respond in kind and rethink their repair policy. It could make roads and highways throughout the country far safer, particularly those just outside of airport car rental counters.
