Triumph's $2.9 million recall fine

September 2015

Street Triple R | NHTSA | Accident risk | Safety

Well this is embarrassing. For Triumph. The US government has slapped a $2.9 million fine on Triumph Motorcycles for failing to notify the National Highways Transport Safety Administration (NHTSA) about a potential design hazard on its Street Triple R model.

It seems that 1,368 bikes built between 2012 and 2013 were recalled in the USA last September (2014) after it was discovered that four bolts holding a cable guide could work loose and interfere with the steering, thereby possibly/maybe/theoretically causing an accident.

Triumph did the right thing in notifying the NHTSA. However, it's since transpired that Hinckley knew about the problem over a year before when, in June 2013, it issued a recall on UK bikes. And promptly fixed 'em.

Moreover, the NHTSA reckon that Triumph was a little backward in coming forward with various related documents such as injury claims, technical service bulletins, and progress reports.

Consequently, Triumph has been fined $1.4 million and slapped with $500,000 in costs, the money to be used to improve safety practices. And if the Leicestershire-based firm fails to clean up its act, there's another $1 million penalty that will be applied.

Total that up, and it comes to $2.9 million. And that's gonna hurt (if not in the pocket, then in terms of prestige). The company will live it down, and worse things have happened in the motorcycle manufacturing world. But (and without knowing the ins-and-outs of it) it looks like pretty sloppy behaviour from our favourite motorcycle manufacturer.

$1.9 million, incidentally, converts to roughly £1.2 million. And for that, you can buy around 123 Speed Triples at £9,749 each, or 171 T100 Bonnevilles at £6,999 each.

Ouch.

Meanwhile, if you own a Street Triple R, and if you live anywhere on this side of Mars, you might want to have a fiddle around the headstock area and check if anything's amiss. You never know.

Chances of someone at Triumph losing his or her job over this? Your guess is as good as ours. But these days, the weight of employment legislation is strongly in favour of keeping the idiots at their post, no matter what.

— Big End