What Jenelle Embrey saw happen to her friend in the rear-view mirror
last year prompted her to become a leading critic of the Jeep Cherokee's
safety record. FULL STORY
|
CHRYSLER REFUSES SAFETY RECALL
June 6, 2013 -- Updated 1352 GMT (2152 HKT)
Witness: Whole Jeep went up in flames
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Jenelle Embrey says the fiery crash occurred because of the placement of the fuel tank
- Chrysler rejects request to recall 2.7 million vehicles
- It's the first time since 1996 that an automaker has fully challenged a recall demand
She saw her friend, driving behind her, get rear-ended by a truck on a highway near Winchester, Virginia, in October.
With three people in it,
the 1998 Jeep Cherokee crumpled like an accordion when a tractor-trailer
hit it at more than 60 mph, she says.
Two of the three occupants were alive after the impact, Embrey says. But they died in the subsequent fire.
"The whole thing had gone up in flames," she says. "And we watched those people burn to death."
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Desperate to help, her father, Harry Hamilton, ran to the Jeep and broke the windows with his bare hands.
He pulled Zackary Santor
out alive. But Heather Santor, his mother, could not be saved. Nor could
the other young passenger, Acoye Breckenridge.
"He was hollering and screaming and waving his hands," Hamilton recalled. "And his head -- the back of his head was burning."
Hamilton says the wreck was a searing experience.
"It was days before I could sleep over 10 minutes' of time," he says.
But were these tragic
fatalities in any way related to the Jeep's design? Or were they simply
the unfortunate outcome of an unsurvivable crash?
Chrysler Group, which owns Jeep, says that the model of the Grand Cherokee meets safety standards.
Embrey says her friends
would not have died if the fuel tank of the Jeep Cherokee was not so far
back toward the rear of the vehicle.
"They can take another
vehicle, and run into the back of that vehicle up to 70 miles an hour,
and it doesn't catch fire," she says, "because there isn't a gas tank
right there."
But Chrysler Group sees
it differently. The company says statistics show that Jeep models such
as the Cherokee are no worse or better in rear-end crashes than similar
vehicles by other makers from that period.
"The 1998 Jeep Grand
Cherokee meets and exceeds all applicable federal safety standards," the
company says in a statement, "including the stringent requirements of
the applicable FMVSS 301 -- the standard by which a vehicle's fuel
system design is evaluated in the U.S. -- and has an excellent safety
record over many registered vehicle years."
Embrey has mounted a personal campaign against the Jeep design. Her online petition
has drawn more than 100,000 signatures, and she has spent thousands of
dollars of her money to buy billboards criticizing the company.
But Chrysler maintains that the root cause of the Winchester fatalities was the crash impact.
"This tragedy was the
result of a violent, high energy crash caused by a distracted
tractor-trailer truck driver who rammed into the back of the 1998 Jeep
Grand Cherokee at highway speed," it says.
In a rare rebuff, Chrysler Group has refused a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration request for a recall of 2.7 million SUVs.
The government agency
says the gas tank design used in 1993 to 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokees and
2002 to 2007 Jeep Libertys is unsafe. Chrysler says that the design of
the gas tank is commonly accepted in many other vehicles.
It's the first time since 1996 that an automaker has fully challenged a recall demand from the safety agency.
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