When you’re driving yourself or with your family or friends in your car, you naturally want it to be as safe as possible. You know that you’re a good driver who doesn’t take risks on the road, and your car is mechanically sound. However, there’s more to driving safety than that.
You may have noticed that there’s been a lot of coverage in the press recently about vehicle recalls, but did you know that it’s actually very easy to check to see if you yourself are driving a car that’s been recalled by the manufacturer?
Recently there have been tens of millions of cars recalled by their manufacturer for a variety of issues, including problems with the braking systems, airbags, and more. A federal program launched in 2014, has made it easy to look online to search for whether a specific car has been recalled, and the reason why.
A very user-friendly aspect of this tool is that all car manufacturers need to provide at least 15 years of data for it, and to update the recall information they hold on a weekly basis.
The tool on the safercar.gov website is an invaluable resource for the many owners who have no idea that their vehicle needs to be repaired as part of a safety recall. The site even gives you information on safety recalls that are incomplete on a specific vehicle.
According to the L.A. Times, manufacturers are recalling a record one in five cars annually, and many of us have no clue about it. With this in mind, the safercar.gov tool is something that every car owner should know about and should check each, and every time they change vehicles – whether they’re renting or buying.
Driving around in a defective vehicle not only puts the health and wellbeing of you, and your own family at risk, but it risks the lives of everyone on the road with you, so checking out any recalls is the responsible thing to do for everyone that drives, and for their passengers.
Vehicle identification number searches should also be available on your car manufacturers site, however, the safetycar.gov tool encompasses all safety recalls that have been conducted by all major light automakers, and motorcycle manufacturers in one place, and this makes searching for multiple VINs easy.
Remember too that it is important to keep your auto insurance up-to-date and that it is a policy that includes the car insurance coverage that you need.
Click here for a free auto insurance quote from BOLT Insurance Agency.
