The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has issued about 300,000 recalls of cars in recent days, ranging from Kia to Mercedes.

The problems include faulty brakes, software errors and even potentially damaged engines.

But the nonprofit National Safety Council estimates that roughly one out of every five recalled vehicles are never repaired.

Council Program Manager Lonny Haschel told WDET that failing to address a recall can pose a hazard on the roadways.

In cases involving defective air bags, he says, delaying repairs could prove to be a deadly mistake.

Listen: Millions of Michigan drivers riding with danger after avoiding recall repairs

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Lonny Haschel, Program Manager, National Safety Council: Nationwide, our partners at Carfax estimate there are over 57 million vehicles with open safety recalls.  And in Michigan there’s over 1.5 million vehicles with open safety recall. So about one out of every five cars you see on the road or in the parking lot have an open recall of some type.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: And in the Council’s view, that could create dangers for everyone driving on a roadway?

LH: It certainly can. What happens is sometimes people do their own risk assessment. They can learn about a recall from our website, for example, CheckToProtect.org. You can go there, enter your license plate or your vehicle identification number, or you can take a picture of either one and upload it. It’ll tell you if there’s a recall. People may see something like a “canister purge valve,” which to me, that means absolutely nothing. But when the mechanics and the professionals at the dealership start looking at that, it actually can cause a fuel tank to collapse on itself and cause the vehicle to stall or not start again. If you’re out on the Interstate in the afternoon rush hour and you’re in that left lane, that can be a huge safety issue. So we want to make sure that folks are being proactive about their own safety.

QK: Does an owner typically get notified if there’s a recall? Or is it on them to search out the information and find whether their vehicle is under a recall order or not?

LH: If you own a new vehicle, you’re going to have a relationship with the dealership and the manufacturer knows you have that car. If you are like me, who a lot of Americans are, the average age of cars people own in the United States right now is 11 years old. I drive a 15-year-old pickup truck. I’m the fourth owner of that thing. So the manufacturer may not know I have it. If you’re a new car owner, you’re going to absolutely get a notification letter. Many people receive a letter for a vehicle they don’t even own anymore, because it takes a while for that to catch up. Again, by being proactive, going to CheckToProtect.org, you don’t have to sit around and wait on a letter when there could be a safety risk for you or your family. If they hear that their vehicle type might be involved in a recall, they should search it out themselves.

QK: So they should take the initiative?

LH: We work with a lot of drivers’ education programs across the country. We’re trying to instill in everybody that this is a part of regular maintenance. You check your oil, you check your brakes, your windshield wipers, you get your oil changed. You should also take a few minutes and go to CheckToProtect.org to see if maybe there was a recall issued on your car in the three, six months, or whenever it was between oil changes. Because it could happen at any time.

“We’re trying to instill that [checking for recalls] is a part of regular maintenance.” 

–Lonny Haschel, Program Manager, National Safety Council

QK: Typically recall announcements say bring the vehicle in and it will be fixed at the dealers’ expense. But if you are the second, third, fourth owner of the vehicle, can you still have the recalled part fixed at no cost?

LH: The recall repair is absolutely free, regardless of who’s driving it. Let’s say Aunt Susie let you drive her pickup truck because she didn’t need it and you’ve had it for about a year and a half. You can check yourself if the vehicle’s under a recall, even if you don’t necessarily have a relationship with a dealer because it’s your aunt’s car or truck. On our website, if it shows there’s a recall, we have a “Find a Dealer” button so we can connect you with a dealership to set up an appointment and get that repair done for free, regardless if you’re the owner or not.

QK: Does that recall cost-covering ever expire if the vehicle is no longer under warranty?

LH: Even if the vehicle is out of that warranty time frame, if there is a safety recall it will be repaired for free.

QK: When you talk to drivers, owners, et cetera, what kind of reasons do you hear for why they don’t get a recalled vehicle repaired?

LH: A lot of times they just didn’t know it was free. Sometimes we get younger drivers we partner with, like some in the U.S. military, for example, who’ve never been exposed to a vehicle recall because their parent or caregiver always took care of that. They didn’t have to deal with a vehicle safety recall until they bought their first car in their mid to late 20s. So it is a simple lack of awareness. Sometimes they say that it doesn’t seem important because my car is running fine right now… But it’s not a problem until it’s a problem. We want people to get things fixed before anything happens. It is truly a safety issue for both everyone in that vehicle and those on the roadway around them.

In Michigan, 1.5 million vehicles have been recalled but not yet repaired. That includes over 150,00 with Takata airbags. Back 10 years ago, there were more than 60 million of those vehicles recalled because the inflator can come apart and send pieces of metal through the passenger compartment.  There’s been over 400 people injured and over 20 that lost their lives due to this. Some of those vehicles with Takata air bags are under a “Do not drive” warning. If you go to CheckToProtect.org and you see that pull up, it’ll have a warning on there that you’re not supposed to drive the vehicle. You need to call the dealership. Either they will repair it on site or sometimes they’ll send a tow truck out to get it. It’s that serious.