Albany, NY - November 23, 2016 - With the holiday travel season upon us, the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is encouraging motorists to check www.safercar.gov for possible recall advisories related to their vehicles. To increase awareness of this important resource, DMV is now including the website address along with information about the vehicle recall process on all vehicle inspection reports.
The safercar.gov website is a clearinghouse of traffic safety and automotive consumer information through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). To find out if a vehicle you own or plan to purchase needs to be repaired because of a safety recall, you can go to safercar.gov and enter the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) or the vehicle’s make and model.
DMV Executive Deputy Commissioner Terri Egan said, “When you get your car inspected, you get a vehicle inspection report. That report now reminds you to check safercar.gov for recall information. Repairing a car subject to a safety recall keeps drivers safe and makes our roads safer for everyone. Since October, when we activated this new feature on our inspection reports, more than 1.2 million New Yorkers have been reminded to check safercar.gov.”
The new vehicle inspection reports now include the following: “Your vehicle may be subject to a manufacturer’s safety recall. To check, go to safercar.gov and enter your vehicle’s VIN (Vehicle Identification Number). Safercar.gov will quickly tell you if your vehicle has not been repaired as part of a safety recall in the last 15 years. In case of an open recall on your vehicle, you may visit a local new car dealer who sells and repairs your brand of vehicle to have it repaired at no expense.”
Recalls are issued when a manufacturer or NHTSA determines that a vehicle, piece of motor vehicle equipment, car seat, or tire creates an unreasonable safety risk or fails to meet minimum safety standards. Your vehicle’s manufacturer is required to notify you of any recalls and fix the problem for free.
Vehicle owners may not get manufacturer recall notices due to things like a recent move or an issue with mail delivery, so NHTSA recommends checking safercar.gov at least twice a year. You can also sign up for NHTSA’s Recall Alerts that will notify you if your vehicle is included in a recall, and there is a safercar mobile app for Apple and Android devices that sends recall alerts and offers other helpful safety tools.
If your vehicle has a safety recall, safercar.gov will give you the relevant recall information so you can contact the manufacturer or a local dealer about scheduling the repair. Recalls that go unaddressed may not only jeopardize the safety of the owner/operator of the affected vehicle, they could also affect the safety of every other person sharing the road with that potentially unsafe vehicle.
There are approximately 900,000 inspections per month in New York State. By law, your car must be inspected annually.
Other online resources to get vehicle recall information include NHTSA’s Recalls and Defects page, NHTSA’s Recalls.gov page and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s recall listing.
Additional driver safety tips and information are available by visiting the DMV's website and the GTSC website. A link to the safecar.gov website is also now provided on a page on the DMV website.