Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety of Sacramento and the Center for Auto Safety of Washington are asking the Federal Trade Commission to order car rental companies to start fixing every vehicle with a safety recall before renting them to consumers. This request comes three months after Enterprise Rent-A-Car settled a court case where two women, Raechel and Jacquelin Houck, died in a rented 2004 Chrysler PT Cruiser in which the recall for power steering leaks had not been done. In May, Enterprise admitted that the company was negligent, and that its negligence “was the cause of the fatal injuries.” In June a jury awarded the parents of the women $15 million.

While rental-car companies do not have to pay for recall repairs, they do lose the use of the vehicles while the work is being done. As part of the legal proceedings, an area manager for Enterprise who worked in San Francisco said in a deposition that rather than turn customers away, recalled vehicles were routinely rented when there was a shortage of vehicles. Recalls are “addressed as soon as possible”, Laura Bryant, a spokeswoman for Enterprise Holdings, said in an interview.

Ms. Houck, the mother of Raechel and Jacquelin, says Enterprise and other rental car companies must be forced to change their practices. If the F.T.C. takes action against Enterprise, it would put the other rental-car companies on notice. Under federal law, auto dealers are not allowed to sell a new vehicle without carrying out a recall. The danger to consumers is that there are no such restrictions on rental-car companies.