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General Motors: Where's the trust?






My neighbor Georgette walks a country mile twice, sometimes three times a day.
At 80, she's an active senior, a busy body, a walking, talking, griping neighborhood watch.
She knows and sees everything.
Don't mess with her.
Last week, she ambled up.
"I been in the hospital," she reported. "I got in a car accident. Look."
Her chest was swollen to twice its size, and was all black and blue and she'd been bleeding internally.
Her airbag had only partially deployed.
For the record, it was a 2002 Pontiac Sunfire.
Yesterday, we saw her again.
She'd just spent another day and night in the hospital, bleeding from her orifices.
The insurance, she says, is looking into it.
They offered her $2,500 for her car.

I come from the land of cars, St. Catharines, Ontario, a place we used to joke where everyone made sure they bought cars assembled never on a Friday. Across from the GM plant, was a spot called the Golden Pheasant -- we called it the Ruptured Duck. At noon on the dot, the barkeeper would line up draft along the bar so the worker bees could come in, down a few and get back to work.
It always made me queasy.
Still, for years, I bought from General Motors.
Not anymore.
GM has betrayed the trust of all North Americans by not standing by their cars, and not standing up to say they screwed up.
It's just business to GM.
It's not business to me.
Nor my neighbor.
Sure, other companies have defects. Toyota, Honda, Nissan -- even our beloved Subaru, a place, in full disclosure, where Scott works.
Recalls are, sadly, common place.
But only recently, companies like General Motors have been hiding those defects.
People are dying and their loved ones have to find out in the paper that it's because their car company screwed up.
Neighbors are getting their chests crushed, and nobody has bothered to tell them to bring in their cars.
Georgette didn't know.
I bet Georgette would be walking around, not bleeding internally, if she'd bought another kind of car.
Shame on you, GM management.
I ask GM: Where's the trust?
 

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