GM to install brake safety precaution

AUTOMOTIVE

GM to install brake overrides worldwide

General Motors said Monday that it will install a new brake safety measure that can prevent unintended acceleration on all its new vehicles worldwide by 2012.

GM has not had major problems with unintended acceleration, but the company said it wanted to reassure customers about safety.

The brake override reduces power to the engine when the driver steps on both the brake and the accelerator. It also slows a vehicle if the gas pedal is stuck.

Federal regulators are considering making the technology mandatory on new cars and trucks after Toyota's safety issues.

-- Associated Press

ALSO IN BUSINESS

-- United offers raises, with a catch: United Airlines said it would raise flight attendants' salaries to match that of their counterparts at Continental Airlines, but the move would be in exchange for agreeing to modified work rules.

Under the new arrangement, some experienced flight attendants, for example, would get raises of more than 10 percent. In exchange, United wants more flexibility over which hotels flight attendants stay at, and reductions in benefits earned by flight attendants who trade away their flying time.

"The reason Continental can afford to pay these rates is that Continental currently enjoys significant advantages over United in the areas of work rules and benefit costs," United spokesman Doug McKeen wrote in a letter to the head of the flight attendants' union.

United flight attendants took sharp pay cuts before the airline emerged from bankruptcy in 2006. Negotiations on a new contract began a year ago Tuesday.

-- Associated Press