[Nickshu]

http://money.cnn.com/infographic/pf/autos/gm-recall-timeline/?iid=EL

You are right but the similarity is that out of millions upon millions of cars a handful had problems. It appears GM redesigned the ignition switch more than once since 2001 and when tested it worked properly. Then variations in consumer use that exceeded what is possible to test for uncovered a persistent problem. Toyota had the same issue IIRC a computer glitch that despite extensive testing could not be reproduced but in the real world occurred a few times resulting in disaster.

No doubt GM could have handled it better but the story is not as simple as some media reports suggest. I am not sure about calling this an intentional cover up as while GM did screw up along the way they did make several attempts to address the issue. Unfortunately some of those attempts were pretty poor.

It brings up an interesting point about safety devices... Driving itself is inherently dangerous. Two drivers collide and both die, one car with an airbag that does not deploy and the other car without an airbag. We all blame the carmaker as responsible for the death of the guy in the car with a malfunctioning airbag but not for the guy whose car did not have an airbag.... Hmm.