Sarah Trautwein was driving on I-95 in the South Carolina town of Walterboro when her 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt went off the road, onto the median and hit a tree. Trautwein was killed instantly . Her family thought she fell asleep at the wheel.
In February 2014, Chevy Cobalt manufacturer General Motors began recalling the vehicles for faulty ignition switches. The cars could suddenly turn off, disabling power brakes and steering as well as airbags. The Trautwein family realized Sarah may not have fallen asleep at the wheel after all.
"Definitely the airbags should've opened," Sarah Trautwein's mother, Renée, said about the crash. "We kept seeing the stories about GM ... and we decided to look into it further. And here we are."
When GM began publicly admitting to problems with Cobalt ignition switches, it began to look like the switch in Sarah Trautwein's Cobalt had failed. CEO Mary Barra agreed to meet with victims' families, and that included Renée Trautwein .
"It was very scripted. Mary Barra basically said ... how sorry she was. After each parent we all went around, showed our pictures. Of course we were all crying, some of us uncontrollably. She was very stoic. Very cold. I really don't feel we got anything other than bonding" with the other families, Trautwein said. They spoke for an hour, "and then [Barra] just walked out of the room. Basically turned around, and walked out."
Last week, Mary Barra testified in front of Congress about the timeline of events leading up to the GM's admission of a problem, and the subsequent parts recall. When asked about that testimony, Sarah Trautwein's brother, Phil — a former NFL player, now a coach at Boston College — didn't mince words.
"It was pointless. [Barra] had all the information in front of her, and she just didn't go with it," Phil Trautwein said.
"They could make this a real urgency," Renée Trautwein said. "We need to get these cars off the road. Already we're reading how the parts aren't being shipped to these dealers. There are individuals out there that are driving these cars that are deadly. They're just deadly."
Phil Trautwein pointed to a new Change.org petition urging legal action against GM for the faulty switches.
"We don't know what's going on. We don't know if our justice system is doing anything. So for us, we're trying to get people to understand what's really going on," Phil Trautwein said.
>> To hear the entire Boston Public Radio conversation with Renée and Phil Trautwein, click the link below.
