Federal regulators Friday fined General Motors Corp. a $35 million penalty — the maximum allowed and the largest ever imposed on an automaker — for delays in recalling vehicles with faulty ignition switches that have been linked to 13 deaths. The automaker also agreed to extreme oversight requirements. The changes GM is required to make to its safety practices will be supervised by the government, which is unprecedented for an automaker.

Regulators allege that for at least a decade, GM knew about problems with the ignition switch, which unintentionally can turn off the vehicle, disabling the power steering and airbags. But the company only began recalling vehicles in February. “Crashes happened and people died,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said. “Had GM acted differently, perhaps some of this tragedy might have been averted.”

GM has linked the problem to at least a dozen deaths in more than 30 crashes. Outside sources, however, estimate that over 300 deaths have been linked to the GM ignition switch problem. Many of these victims families are not aware that the accident their loved one died in may have been caused by the defect.

Federal regulators are investigating GM for failing to address the problem which, according to the maker of the faulty GM ignition switch part, could be rectified with a few dollars and a few minutes for installation.
Since GM ignition switch recall was launched in February, it has been hit by dozens of class action lawsuits on behalf of individuals injured or killed in crashes involving recalled cars, as well as customers who said their vehicles had lost value as a result of the company’s actions. In March, an initial proposed class action lawsuit was filed in federal court in Texas. Many more will follow.

So far, GM has recalled 2.6 million vehicles globally. Cars in the recall include 2007 to ’10 Saturn Skys, 2003 to ’07 Saturn Ions, 2006 to ’11 Chevrolet HHRs, 2006 to ’10 Pontiac Solstices, and 2005 to ’10 Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac G5 models.