The auto giant General Motors faces its first congressional hearings today on the safety scandal behind at least 12 and possibly hundreds of deaths. GM has recalled millions of cars after acknowledging faulty ignition switches shut down engines and disabled air bags. Documents released over the past several weeks show GM misled victims’ families despite being made aware of its vehicles’ flaws. Federal regulators also took no action despite the findings of its own investigators. Ahead of today’s hearing, Laura Christian, the mother of 16-year-old GM crash victim Amber Rose, spoke out to reporters.

Laura Christian: “I contacted GM again a month ago. I simply wanted them to give my contact information to the other families, the other victims’ families, to hope to get us all together and maybe heal a little bit. But they pretty much have refused to do that. Apparently the only thing they listen to are things that affect their bottom line. It’s just a shame that corporations, big corporations, like GM, feel that they might be large enough to hide the truth from the public, but in this day and age, there are many people like me who will seek to uncover that information. There is no more hiding.”

Amber died after crashing her 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt in July of that year, months after GM had internally recognized the model’s defective ignition switch. On Monday, GM recalled another 1.5 million cars, this time over a power steering problem. Around six million GM cars have now been recalled this year.