Articles Posted in Auto Products Liability

Airbags installed in vehicles are supposed to prevent injuries, not cause them. But that’s just what airbags produced by Japanese company Takata are accused of doing.

Defective Takata airbags can explode violently in a crash, causing serious injuries in otherwise minor collisions. As of 2021, at least 19 people in the U.S. had died and more than 400 had been injured by faulty Takata airbags.

And the dangers are far-reaching: defective Takata airbags may have been installed in as many as 100 million vehicles worldwide.

Takata Airbag Recall

As early as 2004, reports surfaced in the U.S. of Takata airbags exploding. The potentially fatal flaw is caused by the airbag’s propellant, which can degrade and cause the inflator to rupture explosively. As accounts of injuries and deaths came in over the next few years, automakers started recalling cars equipped with potentially faulty Takata airbags.

By 2014, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) finally ordered Takata to institute a nationwide airbag recall. The recall eventually extended to over 67 million airbags involving 19 different car manufacturers. The NHTSA called these the “largest and most complex vehicle recalls in U.S. history.”

And the bad news didn’t end there. Despite the massive recall, millions of cars with defective Takata airbags are still on the road today. A faulty Takata airbag was implicated in the death of a U.S. driver in 2021, many years after the recall.

Takata Airbag Lawsuits

Hundreds of people have filed lawsuits against Takata, claiming that they were injured by the defective airbags. The lawsuits allege that Takata airbags rupture dangerously when deployed, sometimes shooting metal shards into passengers, causing severe bodily harm.

Takata airbag injuries may include the following:

  • Brain damage or concussion
  • Serious cuts on the face, neck, throat, torso, or arms
  • Fractures to the head, neck, face, ribs, or chest
  • Excessive black eyes or other bruising
  • Severe burns
  • Metal shrapnel injuries
  • Permanent scarring or other disfigurement
  • Hearing, vision, or vocal damage or loss
  • Complications from blood loss
  • Injury to the fetus in pregnant women
  • Death

With so many Takata airbag claims being filed around the country, many of these suits were consolidated into mass litigation. These lawsuits allege that the manufacturer knew about the potential dangers for over a decade before finally issuing the recall in the U.S.

Several multi-million-dollar settlements involving Takata and auto manufacturers have been reached or proposed. In 2017, the manufacturer admitted misconduct and agreed to pay a $1 billion fine, in part to compensate victims. Continue reading

The defining feature of a Tesla is that it can be set to self-driving mode. When autopilot is engaged, a Tesla can drive without the help of the human driver behind the wheel. But this futuristic feature is intended to enhance the driving experience, not replace the driver.

Apparently, nobody relayed this pertinent piece of information to Alexander Samek, a California man who was found intoxicated, and asleep, behind the wheel of his Tesla Model S. Police struggled to pull over Samek’s car for at least seven minutes as the vehicle sped down the highway at 70 miles per hour. A Boston OUI defense attorney can help you determine how to proceed if you’ve been charged with OUI.

Is Tesla Fully Autonomous?

Although those in favor of autonomous vehicles claim that self-driving features will lead to a dramatic reduction in traffic injuries and deaths, incidents like the one above highlight a slew of potential problems. Tesla doesn’t market it’s vehicles as self-driving, likely to avoid lawsuits that would arise from situations like Samek’s. But what is unclear is how he was able to remain in autonomous mode for such a long time without disengaging the autopilot software. Teslas are equipped with stop-gap features intended to disengage autonomous mode if the driver touches the gas pedal, for example. Maybe Tesla is more autonomous than the company has led us to believe?

Drunk Driving on Autopilot?

Even though the vehicle was being operated on autopilot, not by Samek himself, the California man is still being charged with drunk driving.

At about 3:37 a.m. on the night of the incident, a police officer noticed a gray Tesla careening down Highway 101 near Redwood City, Palo Alto. The officer, who could see that the driver appeared to be sleeping, stopped traffic on the highway and pulled in front of the Tesla to slow it down to an eventual stop.

After multiple police vehicles pulled up to the car with lights flashing and sirens wailing, Samek woke up. He was given a field-sobriety test, which he promptly failed.

“It’s great that we have this technology; however, we need to remind people that … even though this technology is available, they need to make sure they know they are responsible for maintaining control of the vehicle,” said Art Montiel, a spokesman for the local police department. A MA OUI defense lawyer can help you protect your rights if you’ve been charged with OUI or any other criminal offense.

Are We Seeing a Trend?

This isn’t the first drunk driving incident involving a Tesla. In August, another California man was arrested for drunk driving after he crashed into a fire truck with his Tesla. And in a case similar to the one involving Samek, yet another California man was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving after he passed out in a Tesla as it drove across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on autopilot. Continue reading

A recall affecting about 656,800 Toyota and Lexus vehicles was recently announced, involving vehicles manufactured between May 2015 and March 2016. According to Toyota, a defect in an open electrical circuit could prevent the air bag from inflating during a crash. As air bags are intended to prevent serious injuries and death in a motor vehicle collision, a non-deploying airbag could be fatal.

Toyota has announced that it will send recall letters to owners of affected models in March 2018. In the meantime, you may wish to contact Toyota if you own one of the defective models, which include:

  • Alphard
  • Corolla
  • Esquire
  • Highlander
  • Hilux
  • Levin
  • Lexus RX
  • Lexus NX SUVs
  • Noah
  • Prius
  • Probox
  • Sienta
  • Succeed
  • Vellfire
  • Voxy

As if the airbag issue wasn’t enough, one of Toyota’s most popular models, the 2018 Camry, is involved in a second recall. This time the defect involves an improper connection of fuel pipes and hoses, resulting in a potential fire hazard. Other vehicles involved in this recall are the Lexus TC-F, GS F and LC 500 vehicles manufactured in 2015 and after. A Boston defective products attorney can help you determine how to proceed if you’ve been injured due to a dangerous or defective product.

Takata Airbags

The largest auto recall of 2017 involved vehicles equipped with Takata airbags. About 34 million vehicles have been affected by the recall, and more are expected. Takata airbags have exploded during deployment, causing serious injuries to vehicle occupants. According to the NHTSA, anyone with a vehicle model equipped with a Takata airbag should avoid driving the vehicle, except directly to the manufacturer to have the dangerous defect fixed. Several Honda and Acura models are involved, as are various Toyota, Lexus and BMW models. Continue reading

On March 1, 2017, the Safety Institute released its quarterly Vehicle Safety Watch List to identify those vehicles with a higher-than-average risk of dangerous defects. The report uses statistics from Early Warning Reports, including injury and death claims. Although the list does not include automobile defects that have already been made official, it does take into account consumer reports that warn of potential dangers. Nearly half of the vehicles on the list are GM vehicles.

The March 2017 Vehicle Safety Watch List identifies 15 vehicles that may have dangerous defects. These include:

  • 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4×4 – Powertrain

Actor Anton Yelchin, 27, who played Chekov in the recent “Star Trek” movies was killed two weeks ago when his 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee slid backwards and pinned him against a brick pillar and a security fence.  Fiat Chrysler recalled more than 1.1 million of these models and large cars in April because some drivers exited vehicles without putting them into park.  The company said it was aware of 41 potentially related injuries during the time it announced the recall.  However, U.S. safety regulators said on Tuesday that there were 68 reported injuries and 266 reported crashes in vehicles that have the confusing gear-shifting control.  Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne said on a conference call that the recall would include a software update that would automatically shift the vehicles into park.  Critics are claiming this is a perfect example of how things become harder to use when you take the controls out of hardware and put them into software.

The underlying issue of the recall is that the Jeep’s shift lever doesn’t mechanically control the transmission, although it looks and moves like a traditional shift lever.  The shifter does not give any tactile feedback as to what gear you are in because it returns to the center position after each shift.  Therefore, to determine which gear you are in, you have to look at the LEDs on the shifter, which are often blocked by your hand, or the digital display in the instrument cluster.  This has caused a lot of confusion among drivers, resulting in them failing to put the vehicles in park.  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration made a statement in February saying, “[T]he Monostable shifter is not intuitive and provides poor tactile and visual feedback to the driver, increasing the potential for unintended gear selection.”  Unlike other car companies who use this type of shifter, there isn’t an override to automatically put the car into park if the door is open. Continue reading

Takata Corporation has expanded its air bag recall to nearly 34 million devices. Already, six fatalities and more than 100 injuries that have been linked to exploding shrapnel from these defective safety devices. As part of an agreement reached with the U.S. Department of Transportation, Takata has admitted that these air bags are flawed.

Until recently the recall affected over 16 million autos with Takata side passenger inflators and only in regions in the U.S. with high humidity. The recall now affects close to 34 million cars and trucks and has gone national. The safety devices were made with a propellant that can degrade.

A Takata air bag with a propellant that has degraded may be at risk of inflating too fast, which could create extra pressure that may make the air bag rupture and shoot metal shards into the vehicle. The metal pieces can cause puncture wounds, organ damage, cuts, bruises, eye injuries, and blindness—not to mention that an exploding air bag cannot properly provide protection during a Boston car crash.

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A jury has ordered Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV to pay the family of young Remington Walden $150 million. The 4-year-old boy was burned to death in a 2012 car accident. The jury arrived at their verdict after finding that the automaker was reckless in its design of the gas tank of the 1999 Jeep Cherokee.

This is the first trial against Fiat Chrysler over fires involving older Jeep models that burst into flames after they were struck from behind. Auto products liability plaintiffs claim that the gas tanks, which are some 11 inches from the rear of the vehicle, are not safely situated. Already, at least 75 deaths in almost two decades have been linked to the older Jeep Liberty and Grand Cherokee. Some 1.5 million have been recalled. The 1999 model in which Walden was riding was not part of the recall.

It wasn’t until the 2005 Jeep models that the gas tanks of these vehicles were relocated to a different location on the car between the rear and front axles. The plaintiff’s legal team argued that the redesign was because the older design was flawed. They accused Fiat of destroying documents regarding the modification to hide the real reason for the fix. The automaker, however, maintains that both the newer and older designs are safe.

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is ordering Takata Corp. to preserve air bag inflators that were removed during the manufacturer’s recall process. The NHTSA wants the evidence kept for both its own probe and for any air bag defect lawsuits. Dozens of injuries and at least five fatalities have been linked to the safety issue.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said that NHTSA would upgrade the Takata probe to an engineering analysis. This should help determine the actual cause of the air bag failure, as well as whether Takata refused to tell the government agency about the safety defect and violated safety laws and rules.

In the last seven years, car manufacturers have recalled some 17 million autos because they came with Takata air bags. The safety devices are at risk of rupturing upon deployment, which may cause them to spit out sharp fragments that can lead to serious injury or prove fatal. Just last year, BMW, Honda, Chrysler, Mazda, and Ford issued national recalls over defective Takata air bags located on the driver side of many of their vehicles. Toyota, Subaru, General Motors, Nissan, and Mitsubishi later joined these manufacturers in recalling autos with possibly defective passenger-side air bags. The affected vehicles were located in geographic areas that experience high absolute humidity on a regular basis.

Even after Fiat Chrysler recalled 1.56 million Jeeps in 2013 in the wake of mounting pressure from U.S. safety regulars, the Associated Press reports that there continues to be related incidents involving car fires and fatalities. The safety issue involves the vehicles’ plastic fuel tanks that are in the back of the rear axel.

The tanks don’t have much structure to protect themselves from getting hit from behind, which places them at risk of tank punctures and fires. To fix the safety issue, Chrysler is supposed to install trailer hitches behind the Jeeps to add more protection.

However, since the recall, only 12% of the recalled sport utility vehicles have been repaired, with some Jeep owners claiming they’ve had problems when they tried to get the fixes completed. Also, notes the AP, government tests demonstrate that the hitches do protect the tanks during car crashes but only if the Jeep is stationary and the vehicle striking it from behind was moving at no more than 40 mph.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it wants a nationwide recall of vehicles outfitted with certain side frontal side air bags manufactured by Takata. The move comes after the regulator decided that the manufacturer is not acting swiftly enough to expand the recall of defective air bags that may rupture when deployed.

Already there have been five deaths, four in the U.S., linked to the faulty auto safety device, which may shoot out shrapnel when rupturing. Today, two U.S. Senators said there might even be a sixth death linked to the deadly air bags. All of the air bag deaths occurred in Honda vehicles.

A national recall would broaden what has to date been regional action involving 4.1 million vehicles in states that are humid and hot, which is where the safety devices are more likely to fail. Automakers involved in that initiative included Mazda, Honda, Ford, BMW, and Chrysler. NHTSA said that unless Takata and the car manufacturers swiftly agree to the wider recall, it will use its authority to make sure that such an initiative happens.

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