Honda Admits Of Reporting Failures While Replying To NHTSA's Special Order

(RTTNews) - Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co., Ltd.'s (HMC) American Honda Motor Co. agreed in a regulatory filing Monday that it failed to report thousands of accidents involving its vehicles to U.S. regulators that caused deaths and injury. The occurrence of these accidents were for a eleven year period from 2003 to date.

The company revealed this while filing a response to the special order from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that was dated November 3. NHTSA had asked the company to respond to the order before the deadline of November 24.

Honda said that an internal audit by third-party auditors had exposed the lapses in its ability to meet federal reporting requirements. The company failed to report 1,729 such accidents.

The company said the reporting lapses were caused due to reporting to data-collecting errors and problems with its programming code, which found as the result of the audit. The company had already reported 1,114 accidents to the NHTSA.

Honda said it is taking certain steps to improve its reporting compliance, including correcting its computer codes and retraining date-entry workers.

Honda is charged of failing to report incidents involving potentially defective air bags made by Japanese parts supplier Takata Corp., which resulted in a death or injury, and for which claims were asserted against Honda.

Automakers are required by law to submit Early Warning Reports or EWR, on each and every incident involving death or injury on a quarterly basis. EWRs are to be submitted to NHTSA no later than 60 days after the last day of each calendar quarter.

NHTSA has also shown concerns that Honda's reporting failures go beyond the Takata air bag incidents. NTHSA has so far identified about 5 million Honda and Acura vehicles affected by the Takata air bag problems.

NHTSA has earlier in the month had opened an audit query (AQ) investigation in order to investigate the extent and scope of Honda's reporting failures, as well as the reason(s) for such failures and the steps being taken by Honda to assure full compliance with the reporting requirements under that TREAD act of 2000.

NHTSA can fine automakers up to $7,000 per say or a maximum of $35 million for failing to report such incidents in a timely manner.

HMC closed Monday's regular trading session at $31.68, down $0.06 or 0.19% on a volume of 0.78 million shares.