Once Fiat Chrysler Automobiles admitted to widespread violations of vehicle safety laws, regulators decided to get creative in their punishment, the New York Times reported today. First and foremost was a cash fine of $70 million against the company — equal to the largest penalty ever imposed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — for failing to execute 23 recalls covering 11 million vehicles. But the additional actions taken by the agency in its consent order with Fiat Chrysler broke some new ground in the government’s efforts to stamp out shoddy safety practices by automakers. The consent order, which was signed on Friday by Fiat Chrysler and government officials and released on Sunday, calls for the automaker to buy back hundreds of thousands of defective vehicles, and pay consumers $100 just to participate in a recall of Jeeps equipped with fire-prone gas tanks. Regulators also forced the automaker to give broad authority to an independent monitor to oversee its safety operations for at least three years, and required it to fund educational programs on vehicle recalls for consumers, suppliers and other automakers.
