New data reveals 2.5 million dangerous vehicles on the roadways, with 106k in Pennsylvania

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — Attention drivers! New data reveals alarming numbers about how many dangerous vehicles are on our roadways.

Carfax is a company that provides vehicle history reports. It just crunched some new numbers and found that millions of recalled vehicles remain unrepaired and on the road.

Carfax says 2.5 million vehicles are currently on the roads with “do not drive” and “park outside” safety recalls attached to them.

Of the ten states who have the most of these, Pennsylvania ranks 5th with 106,000 vehicles still unrepaired.

“I think consumers overlook recalls for a lot of reasons,” said Patrick Olsen, Editor-in-Chief of Carfax.

But these recalls should not be ignored. They are very urgent.

“For ‘Do Not Drive,’ the federal government is saying literally park your car we’ll go get a tow truck so it can be towed to the dealership, get it fixed, and bring it back to you,” said Olsen.

A “Park Outside” designation means the vehicle as a high risk of causing a fire.

“These vehicles have a known risk where not only do they not want you to park it inside your garage, they don’t want you to park it next year garage and if you can park it away from any structure,” said Olsen.

If you’re not sure whether a vehicle you own has one of these recalls, you can check on the Carfax website.

“You go to carfax.com/recall . It’s completely for free, you can put in the vehicle identification number or even easier, you just put in the license plate and it will tell you immediately if there’s an unfixed recall for that car,” said Olsen.

You can also search for recalls on your particular vehicle by going to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website at Safercar.gov.

“There are hundreds of cars on our list and they’re from all automakers. This is not a particular problem for one or two automakers. It’s across the board,” said Olsen.

The good news for consumers is you can get the specified repair work done for free at a dealership.