CHARLESTON, WV - How safe is the vehicle you and your family are driving or riding in? While you may think your vehicle is perfectly safe, it could be subject to important safety recalls. In fact, in 2022, there were 1,050 safety recalls affecting more than 31 million vehicles and motor-vehicle related equipment in the United States. Fortunately, it’s easy to check to see if your vehicle is among those affected by safety recalls.
Safe Cars Save Lives. That’s the message for Vehicle Safety Recalls Week from March 4-10, 2024. The West Virginia Governor’s Highway Safety Program (GHSP) and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) are reminding drivers about important safety recalls. You can visit
nhtsa.gov/recalls and enter your vehicle’s 17-digit Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) to find out if your vehicle has open safety recalls. You can find your VIN on the lower part of your car’s driver’s side windshield. The VIN is also on your car’s registration card.
“Getting unsafe vehicles off the road is a key ingredient to safety and saving lives,” said GHSP Director Jack McNeely. “A recall means that something about the product presents a danger to the safety or health of the consumers who have it.”
Drivers should check for vehicle recalls twice a year. They should add “check for safety recalls” when we turn the clocks ahead or backward, when they do other important things like check smoke detector batteries. You can also
sign up for recall alerts on the NHTSA website. You will get an email if your vehicle is part of a future recall.
You can also download NHTSA’s
SaferCar app, which tells you about recalls and directs you to local dealerships who can do the vehicle repairs. Once you download the app, you can put in your vehicle’s VIN, and information about your tires, car seats, and other automotive equipment. NHTSA will send you an alert about any safety recalls. The app is available for iOS and Android.
Even though vehicle manufacturers send out alerts and warnings by mail and email, millions of recalled vehicles never get fixed. That puts drivers, passengers, and others at risk. Drivers who think their vehicle has a safety-related defect that isn’t covered by a current recall can contact NHTSA online at
nhtsa.gov or by calling the agency’s Vehicle Safety Hotline at 888-327-4236. Sometimes, one complaint can spark a safety recall.
These agencies remind everyone that Safe Cars Save Lives. It’s important to get safety-related repairs done immediately to keep yourself and others safe on the road.