CORRECTION: “Safe Rental Car Act: What Now?”

Auto Rental News is issuing a correction in the article “Safe Rental Car Act: What Now?” from the March/April 2016 issue. The article misstated a requirement of the Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act of 2015 (49 USC 30120) regarding the grounding of a rental vehicle.

The statement that a rental company has an obligation to ground a rental vehicle already on rent within 24 hours (or 48 hours for vehicles with fleets of more than 5,000 units) after receipt of a safety-related recall notice is inaccurate. No such obligation is imposed on car rental companies to ground recalled vehicles being driven by renters.

The language in the law provides that a “covered rental vehicle in the company’s possession at the time of notification” is precluded from being sold, leased, or rented until the defect is remedied. Vehicles in the hands of renters are not in the rental company’s possession; therefore, those vehicles are precluded from the 24- or 48-hour grounding provision.

A seminar at the 2016 International Car Rental Show, “The Recall Bill is Law — What Now?” will discuss provisions of the law and share best practices regarding compliance, operational challenges, and customer service issues.