monday night. wishing you a very good night.s report" is coming up next. gerri: hello, everyone, i'm gerri willis. thanks for joining us. for the next hour we're going to be investigating one of the most critically important consumer stories of the day, one that touches all of us. gm recall, how safe are we? we're expecting the latest on the deadly recall and how it affects everyone on the road. also, victim families are here. >> why compensation can bring my daughter back? >> they should be held accountable. gerri: should they take the compensation or press on with criminal case? we have exclusive demonstration that you will only see here. >> stay relaxed. it is very simple to restart the car. gerri: we'll investigate the national highway transportation

safety administration, nshta. can this government agency fulfill its mission to protect consumers? among our guests, gm compensation fund chief ken feinberg, consumer advocate, ralph nader, lead attorney representing victims, bob hilliard. the gm whistle-blower who warn of a crisis years ago, and "consumer reports" top car expert, jeff bartlet. they're all here and a lot more this is "willis report" special investigation. the gm recall, how safe are we? we begin tonight's program with some perspective. while the numbers are startling in terms of dollars and cars really comes down to people. people that made mistakes and drivers and passengers who paid with their lives. rene thought her daughter sarah had fallen asleep at the wheel. that is what caused the chevy

cobalt to go off the road, killing the 19-year-old college student. for other families, alcohol, pills, speeding and other factors also pointed to driver error as the cause of the deadly crash that took their loved one. then dots started being connected, largely due to a lawyer and a private investigator suing gm. they figured out there was something wrong with thing anything switch. in february of this year gm started recalling older smaller cars including chevy cobalt and saturn ion to repair the defective switch. shockley those in the company that already knew about the problem and remained silent. >> we know no one is perfect but what we can not tolerate, what we will never accept, is a person or a company that knows danger exists and says nothing. literally silence can kill.

gerri: at issue, the ignition switch in many gm cars would move out of the run position. the change from run to accessory made the engine stall. that stall was a originally considered an inconvenience by gm, not a safety issue but that inconvenience robbed the driver of power steering and power breaks and airbags. that inconvenience, devastated families. for families of those who were killed, sorrow turned into loss, turned into anger at gm and anger at people who knew something and said nothing. >> i would just like the truth. the truth. there is no truth here. you know you say there is no cover-up? but yet there is proof that there was a production time, a part replaced with the same number, with the same part number? it is not a cover-up? i think that is totally a cover-up and it doesn't take an investigator to see that. so i would just like some truth.

and some accountability. there is no, no accountability here. it is all hogwash, just total hogwash. gerri: the department of justice is looking at criminal charges. congress continues to hold hearings. >> i never want anyone associated with gm to forget what happened. i want this terrible experience, permanently etched in our collective memories. this is not another business challenge. this is a tragic problem that should never have happened and must never happen again. gerri: rene, who was once comforted by the thought at least her daughter died after falling asleep, is now haunted that the possibility that sara's last moments were filled with terror as she struggled to control the car her mother thought was so safe. wow. the story is particularly tragic because lives that had barely started ended violently. these cars were marketed to young people. parents bought them for their kid thinking they were safe and

reliable but now of course, we know that is not the case. take a look at this print ad for the chevy cobalt, a kid with a skateboard and tag line, the coolest wheels in town. joining me tonight, ken rymer, laura christian, both of whom lost a teenage child in one of the recalled gm cars. laura's child, amber marie rose was the first person linked to faulty gm switch. it took gm almost a decade after that crash to do anything about the problem. also with us, bob hilliard who is representing the families of many of these victims. welcome all. so good to have you here. i appreciate it. bob, i will start with you. mary barra has said there will be more deaths linked to this ignition switch. what we know is that they have said, yes, there have been 16 deaths. now we're starting to see people believe there were possibly more. where do you put the number? >> i put it death, 5,000. i'll tell you why.

you look at number of total deaths on u.s. highways and you add up the amount of years that these recalled vehicles have been on the road, you have a total of 500,000 deaths. gm and -- gerri: everything. >> then you have 26 million recalled cars. now, mary barra made it clear that 13 or 16 is not an exclusive number. she did not indicate, nor does mr. feinberg, that is the end of the arithmetic. the arithmetic is pretty simple because 5,000, believe it or not, is less than 1% of the total deaths in the united states over 10 years. gm put new drivers into millions of cars for decades. gerri: certainly they did but it is difficult to know. i'll tell you why it is difficult to know how many people. many of those cars are gone. they have been smashed up. they have been thrown away. they're in junkyard heeps. >> right. gerri: remains a very big question and one that possibly we may never be able to answer. >> your point is well-taken.

that just means the cover-up worked. because the cover-up actively kept anyone from investigating these cars while they still existed. gerri: all right. i want to show this is, i guess you would say the smoking gun here. this is the ignition switch at issue in some accidents where people died, especially young people. you're seeing, this is what holds the ignition switch right here. you see the key. laura, i turn to you. you got tears in your eyes i can see. there is money on the table. gm is offering right now. ken feinberg will come on and talk about how people can make application. is that what you're looking for. >> absolutely not. money will not bring our kids back. i've been able to track 167 deaths to date. i've got tears in my eyes because hearing 5,000, i mean some of these other parents have asked me to speak up for them and be a vice of their -- voice

of their loved one that can no longer speak. hearing this, i'm not just grieving for amber, i'm grieving for some people that lost someone. we need legislative reform. that's what we need. gerri: ken, what do we need and what do you need? will you be asking for money from gm? is that what you're looking for? >> i agree with laura. we talked about the same thing. money doesn't bring these children back. we've got to figure out why things happened the way they did and make sure this doesn't happen. we don't want more people. we don't want more families to go through what we've been through. gerri: both of you lost children driving cobalts and this is a car that we've been taub about that was marketed to kids. what does it, laura, for you, what will it take to put this behind you? >> i don't think i will ever put this behind me. in a way this has woken me up as far as being an advocate for people who can't really speak for themselves, trying to put forth change, just as like senator markey and blumenthal

bill they sponsored. we need to make sure manufacturers like gm can never perpetrate this type of fraud ever again. this is tantamount to murder to me. gerri: we'll be talking about some of those solutions that are on the table now. ken, i do want to get your response to the same question, which is, how will you ever put this behind you? can you? >> we can't. my wife lost her only child. so for her this was a total lifestyle change. they will never be a grandmother. she will never be at her daughter's wedding. it is not ever behind us. every day we feel the loss of natasha and, again, like i said, this was, a big part of jane's life that is longer here with us. gerri: it is so sad. people say to me, gerri, story is over. it is done. it is in the past. and i say no, because people are still dying.

one woman, laura gost, 20 seven, you know her story, bob. she was a law student. >> right. gerri: she was getting ready to start her career. a real rock star. she dies in a saturn ion crash in march. >> right. gerri: weeks away from the time that mary barra testified in front of congress. >> she is a very, very sad example of how many of our nation's best and brightest. she was the future of our country in a lot of ways. top of her class, editor of her law journal. clerked for a bankruptcy judge. on her way home on a saturday morning. hits an 18 wheeler from behind. her airbags do not deploy. and her parents are now faced with the sad realization that just like laura, just like ken, that this story is not over. these cars aretill out there, and these defects will strike again. gerri: well, we're going to have to wait to see what happens next. we have lots of people on to tell us about what could occur,

where we're going next. ken, laura, bob, thank you so much for being with us. appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. gerri: we've got more to come this hour including the gm whistle-blower who warned the automaker of a crisis for nearly two decades. and next, the man in charge of handling the gm compensation fund is here next. i talk to ken feinberg about how the process is going. and what kind of response he is getting so far. stay with us.

♪ gerri: now while general motors refused to join us tonight, we do have ken feinberg with us. he is the man running the gm victim as compensation fund. we before we talk to him, i i wt to show you a commercial was running that introduced the cobalt. take a look who they were targeting. >> went with an american car,

huh. >> i did. a chevy, chevy cobalt. what do you think? that i love this car. great gas mileage. better coverage than a toyota or honda. they agreat things to say about it on edmund.com. >> looks like somebody is doing their homework. good job, kiddo. gerri: ken feinberg, thanks for joining us. what comes to mind when you see that kind of commercial, clearly targeting that age group? what kind of reaction do you have? >> you react the same way most americans react. you hope and pray there aren't too many victims driving those cars that were either killed or physically injured and you hope that we'll be able to compensate them who can, who are eligible. gerri: we were talking about that in the break. how that is going to work. what the deadlines are. that you have an august 1st deadline for applications. but when you get all that information together and you start, you know, plowing through it, looking at the individual applications, how do you decide what a life is worth?

>> you can't decide what a life is worth? i am not solomon. i do not have that power. all i can do, and you know this, we talked about this before, i can only do what judges and juries do every day in every court around this country. what would the victim have earned over a lifetime but for this tragedy? what about pain and suffering and emotional distress, how does that get valued and factored in? that is all i can do. i was listening earlier. you're absolutely right, money is a very poor substitute for loss. but that is the american system. i will do the best i can. gerri: you know, we just had another young woman lose her life, 27 years old in march. not, about the same time mary barra was testifying in front of congress. she was about to graduate from washington & lee university. she was going to be an attorney. is someone like that young woman, when you sit down and you do the math, will her family get

more money than somebody whorke? >> yes. that is the american system. the fact is the answer to that is yes. of course you still have to prove your claim. you have to show that it was an eligible vehicle. you have to show that the airbag did not deploy or you don't know whether it deployed or not. you have to give us the documentation that will allow us to evaluate the claim. but i must say, we will work with any claimant, like you gave an example of about the young girl who lost their life, we'll meet with that family, or that attorney representing them, if they would like to meet with me and explain the situation. we'll be glad to hear them. gerri: what kind of reaction are you getting in the halls of gm? have you been there? what are team people talking about inside of the company. >> gm has been cooperative setting this program up. it isn't every company that confronts a nightmare like this and steps up. i must say, gm has not only

decided that this program has no cap, whatever it costs to compensate eligible claimants, gm agrees that bankruptcy bar will not be a barrier to old claims. you mentioned earlier how so many of these old claims, the automobile is long gone. the bankruptcy bar. gerri: how do you figure that out? >> we have to look at the black box data. we have to look at the police report. we have to look the at photos of the tragedy. we'll, lawyers do this every day. circumstantial evidence. remember this also. there are a few people who already settled their claims with gm in court before they knew about this, about this defect. they are now under this program, that i'm administering, allowed to reopen their claim, come back in, seek additional compensation. we'll try and do it. gerri: i think a lot of people were shocked by that and you make note of gm's generosity. the real generosity in my view would have been if they had gone after this problem from the

get-go instead of letting it fester for a decade. >> oh, i'm not here to, you will have to ask gm about that. but notice one other thing about this program. unlike the courtroom, gerri, if the driver was intoxicated, if the driver was speeding, if the driver was texting on her or his cell phone, irrelevant. we are not looking to contributory negligence under this program. we are looking strictly at the automobile, the defect and the tragedy. gerri: let's talk about a couple of more facts. how do you apply, is there an application form you can pick up on the web? what is your deadline? how fast will you turn the cases around. >> the application form will be available august 1st on the web. it will be mailed to everybody on recall list. they can get it in the mail or go online and fill it out online. they have from august 1st, to end of year,

december 31st to file a claim. we work into 2015 to process all claims. december 31 will be the deadline. >> i can't imagine how long this will take. >> we will get money out of the door under the protocol we announced once we get a form substantially complete within 90 days, money out the door for simple cases and 180 days for the more complex cases. gerri: so we were talking during the break how difficult this kind of work is. you have handled very difficult cases. 9/11 victims fund. bp oil spill. which has been the most difficult and will this be difficult. >> this will be difficult. you're dealing with human beings, very emotional people. i was watching earlier today, understandably emotional. no matter how these programs vary i've been involved in, one common denominator is the emotion and the grief and reaction of people, whatever the money might be it is a pretty poor substitute. so all of them are tough assign

meents? assignments. gerri: was 9/11 the most difficult? >> 9/11 was a the most awful thing because it was american tragedy and so unexpected. congress set that program up as you recall, within 13 days after the tragedy. i mean the smoke was still billowing down on the world trade center and pentagon and yet congress was already talking about money and people were pretty impacted adversely by that whole tragedy and that is rough. gerri: got to tell you, ken. there is smoke billowing at homes of a lot of families out there who have been impacted by this we can't to keep up with you as this proceeds. i know it will be a long and exhaustive case. thanks for coming on tonight. terrific to have you here. >> thank you very much. gerri: coming up later in our special education, gm recall, how safe are we, ralph made dear shares, what has changed if anything since the chevrolet corvair? we have a smoking gun that shows that gm knew of a crisis.

next the whistle-blower who has been warning the automaker for years something was wrong. stay with us. stay with us. ♪

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account from whistle-blower fired from gm. and here to way in automotive expert lauren fix. a pleasure to have you both here. bill, i will start with you. explain what you did for a living at gm. what was your job? >> i ran the global delivery survey, which was a a broad survey of general motors vehicles for quality and reliability vehicles after they had been shipped and they were in the transportation system around the country. gerri: what did you start noticing defects? >> we went from a static check on the vehicle to a dynamic check. in '96, we were ramped up to actually drive the cars over a small obstacle course. as soon as we started doing that, we started seeing serious defects on the cars. gerri: go right ahead. >> in '96 and '97 they were quite apparent. gerri: some defects you mentioned, fasteners, tie rods,

fuel leaks. many, many problems. did you see the problem with the ignition switch? >> no. we didn't see that. these cars would have been prior to that. gerri: so your story is really how gm didn't want to hear about this. you told them there were problems. how did they respond? well the problem was that we didn't have the correct checks in place when a safety item came up or switch or fuel leak that it would be stopped from leaving our possession. those stops were eroted over time where cars that were grossly unfit for commerce were being released to the public. gerri: but you told the company about this, right? you told the company multiple times? i have your smoking gun memo right here. >> yes. gerri: you sent letters to every member of the board. did they respond? >> no. i don't know they ever got it.

gerri: but you never heard from anybody. lauren fix i will turn to you, you're very familiar with the gm story. you know the company inside. you know the company outside. does any of this surprise you what bill is saying tonight? >> at that time it was all about sales and publicity. it was getting back on track and there were silos. it was totally different silo if you were in sales and marketing department. it is totally different silo if you were in engineering. what bill is saying was true for the time. there were a lot of things not uncovered slowly leaking out as you see. they're not dumping all recalls at once. they're doing a little at a time. some may never get recalled. this is all because of expense. if you look at bigger picture, costs so much less to do it right the first time. >> the switch is under a buck. >> if they spent extra money, there would be no deaths or problems or pr nightmare for them to work through and we wouldn't even be having this

show. gerri: i want to tell our viewers, and mentioned this bill, because we didn't get a chance to do it and you have sued gn in the past. you and gm have been somewhat contentious and i've tried to alert the world to a lot of problems at that company. thank you so much for coming on the show, bill. laura will join us later in the show with vital information from consumers confused about gm and may want help. now you may have noticed there is a voice missing from our show tonight. that is gm's. we reached out to the automaker many, many times. gm refused to proside us with somebody to state their case. once again we tried to get them on the show but they have decided not to appear. still to come, the blame doesn't lay just with gm. what happened to nhtsa? the regulators were out to lunch. the government agency charged with keeping drivers safe. where is the accountability? vital information that can save your life. i will show you how to control a

car or truck and avoid a crash if it ever stalls while you're on the road. stay with us.

gerri: we are going to show you what to do during high-speed emergency. high-speed decision-making is what racecar driving is all about. so, we went to a private racing club outside new york city. we had a driving expert show us on camera how to handle a high-speed emergency. >> remember there is no reason to panic. it's civil to restart the car. gerri: ari strauss is the president and ceo of the monticello motor club. it cost about 100 grand to join, but then you get to race your sports car around

the track or take out one of the jaguars, ferraris, porsche is or other high-speed machines owned by the track. the deadly stalls in the general motorcars we have been telling you about for the past few months about cars that still use on ignition key and we wanted to demonstrate a key start first. we used a toyota tundra that does not have a stalling problem. so, ari simulated it by turning the ignition key from run to accessory. that's what happened in the gm cars because of the faulty ignition switch, tragically for the gm drivers the ignition switch moved out of run on its own and the drivers had no warning. watch what happens when ari forces a stall. >> is the key moves out of drive into let's say accessory position that cars now stalled and i will lose my power steering. if yield a little strange and i have cars around me if i'm on the highway and the first and i do is relax. number two, throw it in neutral. number three, restart the

car, for put it back in drive. sp1 ari things one of the reason people crash when their gm car stalls is that they didn't know the engine had turned off. he says many people don't know what a tachometer is, but if he goes you're moving chances are your engine has turned off. ari says those drivers just thought there was something wrong with the steering and brakes. >> this is when i panicked because the wheel feels heavy. you can still steer the car. there's no reason to panic. put it back in neutral, start it up, keep my eyes on the road, put it back in drive and go. gerri: you can still steer if you are strong enough to wrestle the car to the side of the road. power assisted steering and powerbrokers-- breaks exist for a reason. gerri: again, to repeat what ari said keep calm, slip figure two neutral, restart the car and pop it back into drive. you can keep on driving.

i want to put the special extended version of this video on my website right after the show. that version also shows you how to restart a pushbutton car, so please go there and share it with friends and family. it could keep you safe. a massive breakdown in a multimillion dollar government agency fueling the general motors scandal. this is the big regulators, or national highway safety traffic in ministration response will for keeping our roads safe. to force recalls and repairs with auto makers they received the first of many complaints about the now recalled vehicles as far back as 2003, but the agency didn't act until this year. when the public was already outraged. former senior attorney, alan, venture coming on the show. so, remind us how long-- explain how long it took them to get interaction? >> i don't think they were onto the problem of the ignition switch until 2014,

when an attorney who was involved in product liability and discovered the documents, lance cooper, actually supplied to them to the agency. years earlier the agency had looked at some airbags on claimants, but they didn't connect the docs and associate that with ignition switch failure. gerri: they received the first of many complaints in 2003 the unexpected shutdowns, so they were getting this drivel of reports, but did nothing about. why? >> i think they didn't connect the dots very well. they get a lot of complaints and it is understaffed and they didn't focus on it as well they should have. gerri: understaffed or not doing their job cracks i thank you have to ask this year's question, is this about dollars and cents and manpower or about people not to the task? >> i think it's primarily the former. in my experience when i was there there was a lot of

hard-working dedicated people in the offense of defects investigation, but they deal with 300 million motor vehicles and billions of motor vehicle equipment like tires, raiders and for that you have a staff of about 20 individuals who actually conduct defect investigations. keep in mind, general motors supplemented their safety office by adding 40 additional engineers this spring around april when things hit the fan. well, that's more investigators then is asked to cover all the of the companies and motor vehicle equipment as well as motor vehicles, so scary understaffed. gerri: understaffed, i'm not willing to let them off the hook. is there anything that needs to begin to get that recall information faster? >> was a recall actually starts-- the problem here i don't think was so much getting information to the public was the recall was announced, but rather that the recall should have been

done years earlier. gerri: allen, thank you for coming on. >> my pleasure. gerri: next, the man who was a pioneer of holding him accountable. he's here. consumer advocate ralph nader gives us his thoughts on if anything has changed since the chevy corvair. stay with us. ♪ you know what i love america,

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gerri: general motors has had a checkered history on safety issues and many of us may remember consumer advocate ralph nader voices strong disapproval of gm's chevy corvair nearly 50 years ago in his book unsafe at any speed. how far have we come since then cracks joining us now ralph nader author of the new book unstoppable the emerging left right alliance. look about to the show. so, have we made any

distance? have we solved this problem? will we ever solve this problem? it's 50 years later. >> the public's expectation for safety and for the obligation to recall defective cars is high. compared to back in the 60s they didn't even know that their cars should be recalled if it were defective. we now have a government agency that should do better, but at least have the authority to require gm to recall these cars, so i think this tragedy will produce stronger legislation in congress to update the old motor vehicle safety laws and to put more budgets into the department of transportation. that's really a scandal. the entire auto safety part of the budget that deals with recalls and auto safety standards is less than what the government spent in three months to guard embassy in iraq. it's about a hundred 42 million to deal with --

leave the parts and millions of cars. gerri: it's interesting you say that, they have a total budget of sunday like $800 million a year, but that's not a tenant billing auto business. i'm not sold on the idea that more money will solve the problem. here is a copy of a december 2010, letter to a congress member in which someone is asking for help with these stalled cars. he sent a letter to knit set, they say we understand their concerns and worry, but at the end of the day a gm technician was an able to find the cause of the stalling and at this time there is insufficient evidence to warrant opening a defective education. it sounds to me like they are asleep at the wheel. would you agree? >> yeah, that is substantially true, not just because of the budget because they have been browbeaten for years like people in congress and browbeaten by the white house and there have been

lobbied by the auto companies to go to sleep. now it's all different because the media is covering it day after day after day. all these car companies are rushing to recall. the problem is the dealers are totally overwhelmed. they can't handle it all, but the government has the authority, which is very little publicized to require gm to open up new suppliers, go to new manufacturers for the ignition switch and to deal with more independent repair garages to supplement their own dealers because otherwise it will take months and months before people get their cars fixed and that's a danger. gerri: delphi, which produced this failed ignition switch is having difficulty ramping up production on the switch that will work and i think they have two or three plants operating, but still people are standing in line tried to get the new switch and some oaks having real problems getting the problem solved.

we also talk about gm and i know you have been highly critical of gm and yet to fix a problem like this it gets lost in the company with 210,000 employees. what needs to happen at the corporate level in your view? >> the internal bureaucracy is massive. the trip all over each other in the cover each other rear in the past about. i propose ceo mary barra a simple idea to start an independent office so conscientious engineers rather than risk their jobs in retaliation can report early on defects that they find in the cars and then they have a direct line to the ceo rivera and she is responsible to send that information to the department of transportation , which is required under federal law. i haven't gotten a response yet from gm. gerri: a single car can have tens of thousands of parts, so the possibilities for problems and troubles

seemingly is endless. ralph nader, thank you for coming on the show. >> thank you. gerri: still to come, vital information for consumers. what should you do if you buy a car secondhand? and it's been four months since gm started its recall for both ignition switches, but gm owners are still waiting for their defected cars to be fixed. what's the holdup? we will investigate.

gerri: it has been months since gm started its recall for both ignition switch and as ralph nader just said some gm owners are still waiting to get their cars fixed. with more on the fox businesses jeff locke was in chicago. jeff. reporter: still driving them, as you pointed out.

earlier in this broadcast these cars were all of the road. this is a 2005 saturn ion and has been recalled and not been repaired and i want to take you inside to introduce you to someone who owns this car, joanna how and this cars on now. look what i just did. i just hit it and turned it off. happens to you a lot. >> yeah, when driving occasionally. reporter: and you actually find yourself able as jerry did earlier the broadcast to turn it on quickly and not panic. >> i do panic, but i tried it on quickly. reporter: that is amazing. yeah, it has become a habit at this point. reporter: has a few feel at this point in this car? >> as long as it is often feel okay. reporter: interesting. take a look at the numbers in terms of hobby cars need to be repaired and how many have been repaired. we are talking 2.6 million recalled and at this .410000 repaired. what are they telling you about repairs, joanne?

>> we are currently waiting to get it repaired and i think they said the part within but we are waiting for our appointment. reporter: i want to come back to this and want to turn the car on and started up. have to point out you have a key join on there and they have said take the keys off and you haven't done that. at ask you why? >> mostly forgetfulness. i know i am forgetful cytolytic my house k of my keychain and also was the car stalls i remember taking off this clip and put it in the cup holder. reporter: my sense is that this is not-- joanne is not alone and i will tell you use all i just did earlier. look, there you go. if you turn hard or guthrie bump that can happen and that is still happening out there. we have 2 million plus vehicle still in repaired and on the road. gerri: jeff and joanna thank you for that great

reporting. well, if you are one of the millions of owners impacted by the gm recall what you do? what do you need to know? here to help answer those of questions jeff bartlett consumer reports car expert and welcome to you both. i will start with you jeff, how do you have because been recalled? >> any consumer can look online and discover what recalls have been issued on their car. they can go to save car.gov. you look up the car by year, make and modelably in the wake of all this if-- it would be wise go the government website and register for notification by e-mail and then there is no delay in waiting for a letter to come to the mail. you will be notified by the preferred e-mail account you use. gerri: is it true when you look at this that the first owner will get the letter from the company if you're waiting for a recall letter to see if you have a car that's recalled? >> usually. it could end up just being sold by any used car lot or

through an auction or a private owner to private owner. if you're not sure right on the vehicle identification number located at the base of the-- and call your local gm dealer and ask for the service department and give them the number and they will tell you if the cars in recall and if you have a problem that's not under recall that is when you need to talk to service manager. gerri: okay. one of the questions i have and we just saw a woman here who has a car and she can't get it fixed, should you still be driving it, jeff? >> there is certainly a concern, but gm is saying if you remove the ignition suite-- key from the keychain that should remove the risk and that coupled with the understanding of what to do if you experience a problem people will have to keep driving their cars, but gm did say if you have significant concern the

dealership will work with you to provide a loaner car. gerri: would you allow your daughter to drive a gm carpet was one of those affected? >> my daughter? probably not. i have to think about their safety. i can replace cars all day long. you can't replace people. gerri: , so is there any way you can put pedal to the metal to get these cars fixed if you have a gm car you drive a? >> gm has the challenge of dealing with summary cars and in fact they have recalled about 17 times more cars than they have sold, so the dealerships are challenged to get the cars and by the time to do the work. it's hard to accelerate the work because it is in line with a lot of people. make an appointment as soon as you can. gerri: last word, lauren. >> etiquette support for people to be aware. i can't tell you how me people that may not watch tv or they may not listen to the radio, please if you find people i have told

total strangers and parking lot that their cars under recall and you really should get it checked. please pay it forward and let people know. gerri: 60% of those out there-- that is the number that has actually done something and the rest have something and the rest have not.

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. gerri: finally tonight, one guest missing from our show, gm. we asked the company repeatedly to appear but were turned down. i think that's what's happened with gm, what's happened to the company is a tragedy for the families of course, but also for gm. the company is iconic american brand, a company that helped pull america through world war ii by converting auto plants to tank plants, one of the biggest manufacturing enterprises in the world. a company that for 77 years sold more cars than any other company, period. all of this could be jeopardized as ineptitude.

that's a tragic field. we're always watching out for you, the consumer. have a great night. >> well, if you have had it with them coming here, do you not have a heart? i am going to try to straighten us out and one thing for news organizations, they want us to stop using the term illegal. for matt lauer urging viewers to share their thoughts, and for them to say we don't even have the because apparently we don't have a