Yourlawyer.com (Airbag Injuries News)

Mitsubishi Recalls 2010 Endeavor For Faulty Airbags

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Mitsubishi just announced a recall of 531 of its 2010 Endeavor vehicles over concerns that the vehicles’ front seat-mounted airbags might not correctly deploy in the event of a side impact crash, reported Edmunds, citing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

"The retainer bracket used for the seat-mounted side airbag frames on both the driver and front passenger seats may not have been properly welded," said NHTSA in its recalls summary of the problem, quoted Edmunds. "If this condition exists, the front seat-mounted airbags may not deploy correctly in a side impact crash, possibly resulting in injury to the seat occupant," the NHTSA added.

Mitsubishi stated in documents cited by Edmunds and filed with the federal government that, "As a precaution [it] placed the 2010 Endeavors on 'stop sale' as of 9-3-2009 until all potentially affected vehicles could be inspected." The inspections will involve Mitsubishi dealers examining the retainer bracket’s weld condition; the weld is faulty, the seatback assembly will be replaced at no cost to the consumer, said Edmunds. Mitsubishi can be reached, toll-free at 1-888-648-7820.

Meanwhile, in another airbag-related recall, we wrote in August that the Honda Motor Company expanded a recall from late last year and added nearly a half-million—about 440,000—cars that could contain a dangerous and deadly airbag defect, CNN Money reported. In that case, the potential airbag defect resulted in six injuries and one death, according to a Honda spokesperson, and involved driver-side airbags.

In the Honda recall, the automobiles require repair or replacement of the automobile’s driver’s side steering-wheel-mounted airbag inflator. CNN previously reported that, in some of the cars, the air bag inflators are over-pressurized, which can result in rupture when the airbag is activated. “Metal fragments could pass through the cloth airbag cushion material, possibly causing an injury or fatality to vehicle occupants,” according to Honda, quoted CNN Money.

The Honda recall was followed by a drop in shares for Japanese auto parts maker, the Takata Corporation. Takata provided airbags for the 2001 Honda Civics and Honda Accords, said Bloomberg.com and is the largest auto safety manufacturer worldwide.

The expanded Honda recall also prompted another Honda recall of 1,532 of its Inspire and Saber passenger cars in Japan. According to Japan’s transport ministry, it was the metal fragments that deployed from the ruptured air bag and allegedly struck a driver’s neck in the fatal U.S. accident, said the Associated Press (AP), last month. Reuters reported that the automaker is also looking into what other models may need to be included in the recall and noted that the airbags are supplied to a variety of markets, citing a spokeswoman.

The Inspire and Saber autos utilize the same type of defective airbag that was installed in the recalled Civics and Accords, said the AP, which is why Honda is also recalling its Inspire and Sabers in Japan. According to Reuters, about 21,00 cars are also being recalled in Canada. The BBC noted that Honda issued a similar recall this past November.

Expanded Honda Recall Over Potential Deadly Airbag Defect

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Honda Motor Company just announced that it expanded a previous recall from late last year and is now adding nearly a half-million—about 440,000—cars that could contain a dangerous and deadly airbag defect, CNN Money reported.

The affected Honda models include the 2001-2002 Honda Accord, the 2001 Civic, and the 2002-2003 Acura TL. According to CNN Money, the potential airbag defect has resulted in six injuries and one death, citing Chris Naughton, Honda spokesman. Acura is Honda’s luxury brand automobile, the Associated Press (AP) pointed out.

The recall involves the driver-side airbags, said The Examiner. Recalled Honda cars will have to have the driver’s side steering-wheel-mounted airbag inflator either fixed or replaced, explained CNN Money.

It seems that in some of the cars, the inflators are over-pressurized, which can result in rupture when the airbag is activated, reported CNN Money, citing Honda. "Metal fragments could pass through the cloth airbag cushion material, possibly causing an injury or fatality to vehicle occupants," quoted CNN Money.

A recall notice will be sent to registered owners of the vehicles involved in the recall, with customers likeliest to experience a problem contacted first, said CNN Money. The recall notices are scheduled to be sent over the next several months and will request consumers to schedule a repair. The Examiner said that Honda is advising consumers to wait for their notice before scheduling a repair appointment.

Bloomberg.com reported that, in Tokyo, Japanese auto parts maker, the Takata Corporation’s shares fell the most in nearly one month following the Honda Motor Company recall. Kimio Kobori, a spokesman for Takata, said that the company—which is located in Tokyo—provided airbags for the 2001 Honda Civics and Honda Accords, said Bloomberg.com. Takata is, said Bloomberg.com, the largest auto safety manufacturer worldwide.

Meanwhile, the LA Times, citing the Associated Press (AP), reported that Honda is recalling 1,532 of its Inspire and Saber passenger cars in Japan. While Honda maintains that the issue of airbag responsibility is unclear, according to Japan’s transport ministry, it was the metal fragments that deployed from the ruptured air bag and allegedly struck the driver’s neck in the fatal U.S. accident, said the AP, which noted that Honda said it is investigating the cause of the death. Reuters reported that the auto maker is also looking into what other models may need to be included in the recall and that the airbags are supplied to a variety of markets, citing a spokeswoman.

The Inspire and Saber autos utilize the same type of defective airbag that was installed in the recalled Civics and Accords, said the AP, which is why Honda is also recalling its Inspire and Sabers in Japan. According to Reuters, about 21,00 cars are also being recalled in Canada.

The BBC noted that Honda issued a similar recall this past November.

Honda owners can log onto the Honda Web site at: www.owners.honda.com/recalls and click on the "Owner Link" for recall status; Acura owners can access www.owners.acura.com/recalls and click on the link for "My Acura,” said Bloomberg.com.

Nissan Recalls Over 200,000 Vehicles

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Nissan Motor Company announced yesterday that it was recalling over 200,000 vehicles in the United States and overseas to repair a sensor system, the Associated Press (AP) reports. The sensor involved could affect the car's passenger side air bag and includes 140,000 Nissan Altima cars from the 2007-2008 model years as well as the Infiniti EX35, G35 Sedan, G37, Nissan 350Z, Murano, and Rogue, also from the 2007-2008 model years.

According to the AP, “Nissan spokesman Colin Price said there have been no injuries or crashes, and the company discovered the problem during internal testing.” While the majority of the recalled vehicles are in the United States, some are in Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the Persian Gulf. The recall affects those vehicles equipped with “Continental Automotive Systems' Occupant Classification System control units,” according to Nissan. It seems that an electronic component in the control unit, which is located in the passenger seat cushion, may have been manufactured “out of specification,” according to the AP. This manufacturing defect could interrupt a signal in the sensor system, which could prevent the passenger air bag from deploying under certain conditions. The recall is expected to begin in early November.

Earlier this year we reported that in December 2007 Nissan North America recalled 696,600 Altima and Sentra sedans that had a faulty engine part that could overheat and cause the engine to stall. Also around that time, Toyota Motor Corporation experienced some serious issues with reliability, recalling about 10 percent of its Tundra pickup trucks and more than 500,000 of its Sequoia SUVs. These recalls are significant because Toyota has been pushing hard to break into the highly profitable large-vehicle market. Meanwhile, last October, Consumer Reports demoted Toyota to third from first in its vehicle reliability rankings, dropping the Camry, Tundra, and Lexus GS from its list of recommended vehicles. Consumer Reports said it would no longer automatically recommend redesigned Toyota vehicles.

Overall, the number of vehicles recalled increased more than 25 percent in 2007 with 14.2 million vehicles recalled last year, an increase of 11.2 million in 2006, according to preliminary figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The increase is mainly due to Ford Motor Company, which recalled 5.5 million vehicles in 2007, mostly for a cruise-control-deactivation switch problem the automaker has been dealing with for years. GM also recalled 537,992 vehicles as of December 21st, Honda Motor Co. recalled 547,215 vehicles, and Volkswagen of America recalled 1.5 million vehicles, mostly by expanding a parts recalls used in multiple vehicles.

GM had 18 recall campaigns in 2007 covering 537,992 vehicles in all. Volkswagen of America has had a major jump in recalls in the last two years, largely because of a single defective part used across many vehicles. The recalls this year included 790,000 vehicles for a faulty brake-light switch. The part, used in several vehicles, was from a single supplier and shows how extensive a recall from one faulty part can be.

BMW Recalls 150,000 Vehicles for Airbag Problem

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

BMW—the world’s largest premium car maker—is recalling approximately 150,000 of its vehicles in North America, it said this week. The recall has been put in place to correct a possible airbag defect. Apparently, the defect may prevent the front passenger airbag from opening in a crash.

The BMW recall involves the front passenger airbag seat sensor mat in some of BMW’s 2004 through 2006 model year vehicles, reported a company spokesman in Munich. U.S. traffic safety regulators had referred to 200,000 such vehicles as having airbag problems and some reports are quoting the 200,000 figure. Regarding the difference of 50,000 vehicles, the spokesman said that those vehicles had already received the new mats that now function properly. "It is definitely only a problem for the U.S. and Canadian markets," the spokesman added, noting those two countries required sensors to detect if a baby seat or a grown person was occupying the passenger seat.

The recall was announced Wednesday and was initiated over problems in the passenger side air bag sensor that develop "depending upon the manner and frequency of the front passenger's entry and exit," the company said. The recall also is dependent "upon seat type," BMW said. Meanwhile, a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) states that the airbags my not deploy “even if a sufficiently severe accident would occur.” Owners of these models should contact their local BMW dealership to discuss a time frame for airbag sensor replacement.

In a defect notice filed with the NHTSA, BMW explained that the problem involves the system that detects whether someone is sitting in the front passenger's seat. "Depending on seat configuration and vehicle geometry," BMW says, "the mat can fatigue … over time, micro-cracks could develop in the side flanks of the mat." These cracks could cause the system to de-activate passenger-side airbags even though the passenger seat is occupied. If that were to happen, "the air bag warning lamp as well as the passenger air bag 'on-off' lamp will be illuminated to make the occupants aware of the deactivation." The head-curtain airbags would still function.

BMS models impacted by this recall include certain 2006 3-Series, 2004 through 2006 5-Series, and 2004 through 2006 X3 vehicles. BMW said it would begin sending letters to its customers beginning late next month, in September. BMW also said that affected owners could continue to drive their vehicles unless the airbag warning lamp and the passenger airbag “on-off” lamp illuminated at the same time.

Should this occur, BMW suggests, "Customers not to use the front passenger seat and have the vehicle serviced immediately.” BMW also added, “At the present time, we are unaware of any accidents or injuries as a result of this issue.” The spokesman said BMW procured the sensor mats from the VDO automotive electronics business that Continental AG bought last year from Siemens. "We don't want to blame them. It is something we will solve in September," he said.

The BMW spokesman said he could not comment on the potential financial impact of the repairs, but he did say that, "We have it under control."

Airbag Failures Involved in Hundreds of Fatalities Each Year, Yet Little Action is Taken

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0700

Airbags are considered by many as a last line of defense against serious injury in a car accident. But a new investigation has found that airbags often fail to deploy when they should, leaving accident victims seriously – and sometimes fatally – injured.   The investigation, conducted by the Kansas City Star, also found that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is doing very little to protect consumers from the threat of airbag failure, and that even when it does take action, the process for issuing airbag recalls is painfully slow.

According to the Kansas City Star’s analysis of the NHTSA accident database, between 2001 and 2006, at least 1,400 people died in front-impact car accidents after airbags failed to deploy.   And this number is on the conservative side, as the newspaper did not count accidents that involved side-impact crashes where the airbag did not work, nor did it count fatal crashes that involved principle impacts to the left or right fender, accidents where victims died after being ejected, or when a crash involved a vehicle rollover.   The Kansas City Star investigators also did not count airbag failure if a vehicle caught fire or was submerged in water. The newspaper also excluded crashes where a car’s airbag was not included as standard equipment. Had the Kansas City Star included such accidents in its investigation, the death toll would have risen by more 4,000 fatalities.

The newspapers investigation also found that the number of accident fatalities that occurred when an airbag did not inflate has risen dramatically over the past several years. Since 2001, the number of deaths in accidents where airbags failed has gone up about 50 percent. And in 2006, there was a 14 percent increase in such fatalities. But shockingly, the NHTSA does not see the failure of so many airbags as a problem. According to the Kansas City Star, when told about the 1, 400 fatalities, a NHTSA spokesperson told the newspaper “If it’s a real number, it’s not a surprise to us.”

That quote pretty much sums up the NHTSA attitude towards the problem of airbag failure, something the agency has not paid much attention to a over the past decade. Since 1996, the NHTSA has launched only about 50 probes into airbag non-deployment. And according to the newspaper, the NHTSA’s own records show that of 20 crashes it investigated that found evidence of airbag failure, only one resulted in a recall.

Even when an NHTSA investigation finds a defective airbag, it can take years for the agency to finally order a recall. In 2002, General Motors issued a recall for some 2000 model trucks, including the popular Silverado make, after airbags failed to deploy is several crashes. But GM had known since 1999 that there was a problem with these airbags.   The NHTSA allowed GM to spend 30 months “testing” the faulty airbag system before it finally issued a recall for more than half a million trucks. According to the Kansas City Star, during that 30 month delay, at least two drivers were killed in Silverado trucks when the vehicles' airbags failed to deploy.

Air Bag Injury Risk Linked To Height

Wed, 16 May 2007 00:00:00 -0700

In a crash, automobile air bags may raise the odds of serious injury for short or tall front-seat passengers, a new study shows.

The study comes from Craig Newgard, M.D., of Oregon Health & Science
University. He's due to present his findings Friday in Chicago at the annual meeting of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.

Newgard analyzed injury statistics for 1995-2005 from a motor vehicle crash database.

The database shows that during the years studied, 52,552 drivers and 14,732 passengers were involved in crashes.

Most of those people weren't seriously injured, but 2.5% of the drivers and 2.6 percent of the passengers sustained serious injuries to any part of the body.

Newgard reviewed data on the drivers' and passengers' height and weight, air bags, and 10 factors about the crash.

He found that air bags were "modestly protective" for front-seat
passengers of medium height, which he defined as being between 5 foot 3 inches tall to 5 foot 11 inches tall.

However, Newgard writes that "air bags appear to increase the risk of
injury for large and small-stature adults."

Newgard calculates that for drivers taller than 6 foot 3 inches, air bags were associated with a 5 percent greater risk of serious injury. He also estimates that for drivers shorter than 4 foot 11 inches, air bags were associated with a 4 percent increase in the risk of serious injury.

Weight didn't affect the results, Newgard notes.

Distance From Air Bag

Newgard's study doesn't provide information on how far the drivers and
passengers were seated from the air bags in the crashes.

Distance from the air bag is the most important factor in preventing air bag injuries, according to background information on the web site of the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA).

"There is no precise height and weight at which an individual is
considered to be at risk" from air bags, says the NHTSA. "The primary
determinant as to whether an individual will be injured by a deploying air bag is the distance from which the individual is seated from the air bag."

The NHTSA notes that there is no precise distance guaranteed to avoid air bag injury since all air bags are unique and deploy with different forces.

Toyota recalling some Scion TC sedans due to side air bags

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Toyota Motor Corp. (TM) said Tuesday it was recalling about 30,000 Scion tC sports coupes over concerns that the side air bags could inadvertently deploy if the door is slammed.

The recall affects about 20% of the tCs produced during the 2005 and 2006 model years, Toyota said. The vehicle is only sold in the United States.

The auto maker said seat-mounted side air bags and side curtain air bags could deploy if the door on that side of the vehicle is closed forcefully while the ignition is on or within 90 seconds of when the ignition is turned off.

Toyota said it has received reports of 17 incidents in which the air bag deployed. No accidents, deaths or injuries have been reported.
Scion, Toyota's youth-oriented brand, will send recall notices to owners next month. Dealers will replace the side air bag sensors at no charge. Consumers can call the auto maker at (866) 707-2466.

Report: Toyota To Recall Tundra Pickups Over Air Bags

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Toyota Motor Corp. will deactivate front-seat passenger air bag cut-off switches in many Tundra pickups to avoid having to install a costlier child safety seat anchoring system, a newspaper said Monday.

The Japanese automaker made the move after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on June 28 rejected Toyota's petition to waive a federal safety regulation, according to The Detroit News. The regulation requires most vehicles built after September 2002 and equipped with the cut-off switch to also have a certain child seat anchor system.

The regulation was meant to see that child seats stay in place in a crash, especially in pickup trucks and other vehicles with smaller rear seating, the newspaper said.

Child seats are not allowed in front seats that lack an air bag cut-off switch, which activates the air bag only if it senses an adult is in the passenger seat.

Deactivating the switch means the air bag will always deploy, making it unsafe to ever put a child in the front seat.

In June 2005, Toyota said that 156,555 Tundras from the 2003-05 model years did not comply with the child seat anchor safety regulation.

Toyota said it will voluntarily recall Tundra pickups, beginning in mid-September. It first will complete engineering of the parts to deactivate the air bag cut-off switch, said spokesman Bill Kwong.

Washington-based Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety said Toyota should not be allowed to simply deactivate the switches.

Kwong said engineering issues may make it impractical to add the latches.

NHTSA Opens Investigation of Over 800,000 Chrysler Vehicles with Potentially Faulty Airbag Sensors

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:00:00 -0800

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened a formal investigation (Action Number EA06003) into more than 800,000 DaimlerChrysler vehicles for potentially defective airbag sensors that can delay or prevent the deployment of airbags in the event of an accident.

The preliminary evaluation, which has been upgraded to an "engineering analysis," found that the front air bag sensors may corrode due to water seeping in to the sensor assembly.

Vehicles affected by investigation include 805,000 2005 and 2006 model-year Dodge Caravan, Dodge Grand Caravan and Chrysler Town and Country minivans.

The formal investigation announcement is as follows:

"THE MODEL YEAR (MY) 2005 DAIMLERCHRYSLER (DC) MINIVANS HAVE THE NEW ADVANCED FRONTAL AIR BAG SYSTEMS WITH TWO FRONT CRASH SENSORS MOUNTED ON THE FRAME RAILS BEHIND THE FRONT BUMPER AND A MAIN CRASH SENSOR INSIDE THE AIR BAG CONTROL MODULE MOUNTED IN THE PASSENGER COMPARTMENT. ACCORDING TO DC, THE FRONT CRASH SENSORS ARE DESIGNED TO OPTIMIZE DETECTION OF FRONTAL OFFSET AND ANGULAR CRASHES. THE ADVANCED AIR BAG SYSTEM OFFERS DIFFERENT LEVELS OF AIR BAG INFLATION BASED ON INPUT FROM THE CRASH SENSORS. THE PRELIMINARY EVALUATION REVEALED THAT THE FRONT CRASH SENSORS CAN CORRODE FROM WATER ENTERING THE SENSOR ASSEMBLY. DC IS STILL INVESTIGATING ALL POTENTIAL ROOT CAUSES OF SENSOR FAILURES. A CORRODED SENSOR CAN SET A FAULT CODE, ILLUMINATE THE AIR BAG WARNING LAMP, AND BECOME DISABLED. IT APPEARS THAT FAILURE OF ONE OR BOTH FRONT CRASH SENSORS CAN POTENTIALLY RESULT IN NO/LATE DEPLOYMENT OF FRONTAL AIR BAGS AND NON-DEPLOYMENT OF DRIVER'S HIGHER INFLATION LEVELS IN CERTAIN FRONTAL CRASHES. IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT OCCUPANTS OF VEHICLES INVOLVED IN A CRASH MAY NOT BE AWARE OF LATE OR IMPROPERLY REDUCED LEVEL OF AIR BAG INFLATION AND THUS FIELD REPORTING OF SUCH EVENTS MAY BE SUPPRESSED. AN ENGINEERING ANALYSIS HAS BEEN OPENED FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION OF MY 2005 AND 2006 DC MINIVANS. NOTES: VEHICLE POPULATION SHOWN ABOVE INCLUDES APPROXIMATELY 182,000 MY 2006 MINIVANS PRODUCED AS OF DECEMBER 2005. MANUFACTURER'S COMPLAINT AND WARRANTY CLAIM TOTALS SHOWN ABOVE ARE FOR MY 2005 MINIVANS ONLY. TOTAL NUMBER OF ODI AND MANUFACTURER COMPLAINTS INCLUDES SOME DUPLICATE REPORTS."

73,000 Kia Spectras Recalled

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 00:00:00 -0700

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is recalling more than 73,000 Kia LD Spectras because of a problem with air bags.

The recall is for the 2004 and 2005 model years.
The problem is the computer on the passenger side could mistake a child restraint seat as an adult.

On certain vehicles equipped with an advanced air bag feature, the occupant classification system (OCS) installed in the right front seat of the vehicle may misclassify a child restraint seat (CRS) as an adult. This may occur if the CRS is installed after an adult has been seated in the right front seat. If there has not been a 'key on' ' key off' cycle with the right front passenger seat empty prior to installation of the CRS.

The possibility of misclassification of a CRS as an adult may allow the right front airbag or side impact airbag to deploy in a crash and could result in injury to the right front occupant.

Dealers will reprogram the vehicle's OCS electronic control unit (ECU) to remove the feature that may cause the CRS to be recognized as an adult. The recall is expected to begin during late October 2005. Owners should contact Kia at (800) 333-4542.

Hyundai Elantra Recalled to Fix Air Bags

Thu, 15 Sep 2005 00:00:00 -0700

Hyundai Motor Co. is recalling 240,000 Elantra sedans because of a problem with the occupant classification system.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that the care involved in the recall are from the 2004 and 2005 model years.

The occupant classification system installed in the front passenger seat of the vehicle may mistakenly identify a child seat as an adult passenger, according to NHTSA.

This may occur if the child seat is installed after an adult has been seated and could result in the right front air bag or side-impact air bag being deployed in a crash.

State of Connecticut Outraged by Sale of Bogus Air Bag Covers

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 00:00:00 -0700

Just in case you thought you had heard about every sleazy way there is to make a buck, consider this one.

The state of Connecticut is taking legal action to stop the selling of fake replacement air bag covers by Hicks Air Bag Covers of Alabama which markets its product nationwide without the air bags as an inexpensive alternative to installing a complete replacement system.

The state’s Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal, along with Senator Leonard A. Fasano, and the Auto Body Association of Connecticut (ABAC) will argue for a complete ban on the sale and installation of air bag covers without air bags.

Currently, the law prevents the sale to repairers or dealer but not individuals. Such laws have already been adopted in Florida, New York and other states.

On its web site and in mailings to Connecticut auto body shops, Hicks openly markets its product as a cheap replacement for use in damaged vehicles. The covers come in 50 colors and fit almost all vehicle makes and models. They cost about $75 to $85.

A full air bag assembly costs between $600 and $700. Of course, that includes the air bags which are a nice touch especially if you are involved in an accident.

In 2003, the company’s owner, Lawrence G. Hicks, pled guilty in federal court to selling counterfeit General Motors air bag covers to individuals, auto body shops, and used car dealerships for use in repairing damaged vehicles.

Hicks admitted selling more 4,600 of the counterfeit air bag covers in 1999 and 2000.

According to 2003 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics, air bags saved about 2,500 lives during that year. Nonetheless the Hicks catalog offers the covers alone without the life-saving air bags.

One auto repair specialist stated; "As an auto repairer, my top priority is to fix vehicles so they are safe to drive. ABAC is always very concerned about safety issues. These fake air bag covers endanger public safety and should be outlawed.”

For consumers, it may not always be obvious if air bag has been properly replaced. Thus, when buying a used vehicle, motorists should check for the maker's logo on the bag cover. The absence of a logo is an indication that the cover is a fake and there may be no air bag underneath.

Honda's 2005 Odyssey Minivans Recalled For Air-Bag Fault

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 00:00:00 -0700

More than 85,000 Odyssey minivans produced by Honda Motor Co. Ltd.'s Lincoln manufacturing plant are being recalled due to potential problems in the deployment of frontal air bags.

The recall was issued for the 2005 model on July 28, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

According to the NHTSA's Web site, external impact sensors in the minivan's frontal air bag system were insufficiently sealed on some minivans. Water in the system could corrode and short-circuit the air-bag sensors.

Sensor failure could delay or prevent the air bags from deploying in the case of an accident. A warning light on the Odyssey's instrument panel would alert motorists of the sensor failure, which could delay or prevent the air bags from deploying in the case of an accident.

Dealers are expected to begin replacing the sensors in recalled vehicles beginning Aug. 29.

WHILE TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES DESIGNED TO MAKE CARS AND TRUCKS SMARTER ARE IMPROVING SAFETY, THEY ARE ALSO CREATING POTENTIAL THREATS TO PRIVACY

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 00:00:00 -0700

The crashworthiness of motor vehicles has improved immensely over the past several years. The addition of front, side, and overhead air bags, crumple zones, safety cages, reinforced door panels, and less vulnerable fuel tanks have significantly improved your chances of surviving even a violent collision. These improvements, however, are reaching their limit and may only see smaller advances in the future.

It is for this reason that manufacturers are turning their attention to “crash-avoidance” technology which is designed to enhance driver awareness, reaction, and response in critical situations. This includes computerized systems that avoid collisions, minimize impacts, sense changing road conditions, sound warnings, tighten seatbelts, enhance braking and steering, and improve handling. Even radar sensors are being incorporated into this technology.

Many of the newest systems integrate several features that then act together in dangerous situations thereby producing optimal driver response. This significantly improves the chances of survival for an average or even below average driver.

The potential “dark side” to all of this technology, however, can be found in the sophisticated data-collection or “black box” devices that are now routinely installed in about two-thirds of the new vehicles sold in the United States. Some 30 million vehicles already have these devices known officially as event data recorders.

Currently, these devices are designed to record and store information on such variables as speed, throttle position, braking, airbag deployment, and seat belt use. More elaborate black boxes are used by long-haul trucking companies to monitor the operation of their trucks in great detail.

There are a multitude of uses to which this information can be put. Some of them are very good and some, according to privacy experts, are very bad.

On the positive side, the information gathered may prove helpful in criminal prosecutions, to help convict bad drivers of speeding and drunk driving violations, and to exonerate those wrongly accused of certain offenses. As raw data, without identifying individual drivers, it can aid in improving traffic laws and automobile design and safety.

Many lawmakers and privacy advocates see a real danger that this information will be used in litigation or by insurance companies against drivers who were unaware it was being collected.
They also fear that once the technology is in place, more and more information can be gathered with very little difficulty. This could include recording information from on-board navigation and cell phone systems. It could also lead to insurance companies structuring rates to penalize drivers who refuse to have one of the devices in their car.

To deal with these concerns, there are proposals requiring disclosure by manufacturers as to which vehicles have the devices and for the installation of cut-off switch that can be activated by the driver.

Older Airbags Pose More Danger To Children

Mon, 04 Apr 2005 00:00:00 -0700

Children wearing safety belts who are exposed to older air bags in frontal crashes face a higher risk of serious injury than those with newer versions of the air bags, according to a study published in the April edition of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

The study found that children wearing seat belts in the right front seat had a nearly 15 percent risk of serious injury from an older air bag.

Children in a similar situation exposed to second-generation air bags or ones built after new regulations in 1997 had a nearly 10 percent risk of serious injury.

Air bags have been credited with saving more than 15,000 lives since the Department of Transportation required all vehicles to have driver's side air bags or automatic seat belts by 1989.

Tot Seriously Hurt By Airbag In City Wreck

Fri, 27 Aug 2004 00:00:00 -0700

An airbag deployed in an accident seriously injured a 1-year-old child in the front seat of a car, Decatur police said.

Only the child suffered significant injury, police said.

Two teen boys riding their bicycles on Spring Avenue Southwest about two blocks north of Beltline Road witnessed the 7:15 p.m. crash.

"I saw the blue car drive down the street, and this car tried to turn in front of it and it hit the door," said 13-year-old Justin Allen. "An air bag hit the baby in the front seat."

Barrett Sistrunk, 15, added, "The airbag hit the woman's arm. It looked like carpet burn."

Sistrunk said the child had obvious facial injuries.

Bradford said the child was restrained in a car seat, facing the airbag. The airbag struck the child in the head, he said.

With no way of determining the severity of the child's injury at the scene, police investigated the wreck as if it were a traffic homicide.

Airbags have killed at least 18 infants in car seats across the nation, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Ford Negligent In Air Bag Death

Fri, 14 Nov 2003 00:00:00 -0800

A jury found Ford Motor Co. negligent and awarded US$3.3 million to the 7-year-old son of a woman killed when the air bag of her Ford Taurus deployed in a low-speed accident.

Mayling Semidey, 29, a single mother, hit a concrete retaining wall at about 9 mph in 2000. The air bag went off and caused fatal chest injuries. The civil jury found the air bag system of her 1996 Taurus to be defective.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has investigated the risk of air bags to small-statured women and children who are close to the air bags when they deploy. But Semidey was 5-foot-9 and was wearing a seat belt.

The lead attorney for the family, said older air bags can be problematic for people of any size if the victim is too close when it goes off.

The air bag in Semidey's 1996 Taurus was designed to go off in head-on crashes at 14 mph or faster, and not at speeds of 8 mph (13 kph) or less. At 9 mph (14.5 kph), the air bag was designed to go off in some situations.

Ford Must Pay For Air Bag Death

Fri, 14 Nov 2003 00:00:00 -0800

The Ford Motor Co. should pay $3.3 million to the son of a woman killed by an air bag during a low-speed accident, a Fort Lauderdale jury decided Wednesday.

Mayling Semidey, 29, hit a concrete retaining wall at about 9 mph in March 2000. The air bag inflated and caused fatal chest injuries.

The civil jury said the air bag system of her 1996 Taurus was defective and Ford Motor Co. was negligent.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has investigated the risk of air bags to small women and children who are close to the air bags when they deploy. But Semidey was 5-foot-9-inches tall and weighed 150 pounds. She was also wearing a seat belt.

Jury Awards $3.3 Million In Air Bag Case

Thu, 13 Nov 2003 00:00:00 -0800

A jury found Ford Motor Co. negligent and awarded $3.3 million to the 7-year-old son of a woman killed when the air bag of her Ford Taurus deployed in a low-speed accident.

Mayling Semidey, 29, a single mother, hit a concrete retaining wall at about 9 mph in 2000. The air bag went off and caused fatal chest injuries.

The civil jury found the air bag system of her 1996 Taurus to be defective.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has investigated the risk of air bags to small-statured women and children who are close to the air bags when they deploy. But Semidey was 5-foot-9 and was wearing a seat belt.

The lead attorney for the family, said older air bags can be problematic for people of any size if the victim is too close when it goes off.

The air bag in Semidey's 1996 Taurus was designed to go off in head-on crashes at 14 mph or faster, and not at speeds of 8 mph or less. At 9 mph, the air bag was designed to go off in some situations.

The family's lawyers argued that the air bag was defectively designed to go off in crashes slower than 10 mph when it was not needed.

Ford's lawyer in the case and a spokeswoman for Ford did not immediately return phone messages after hours Wednesday.

NHTSA Examines Airbags On Taurus, Sable For Possible Defect

Wed, 30 Jul 2003 00:00:00 -0700

Federal safety officials are intensifying an investigation of front-impact airbags in nearly 900,000 Ford Tauruses and Mercury Sables to see if a defect might keep the airbags from deploying in crashes.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says its investigation stemmed largely from a single high-speed crash in which airbags did not deploy in a 2000 Ford Taurus rental car. The driver was killed, and the front passenger was injured.

NHTSA says it has uncovered 295 other reports to the agency and to Ford Motor Co. from people who claim that airbags did not work in a variety of frontal impacts.

NHTSA upgraded its investigation from a preliminary evaluation to the more intense level called engineering analysis. It covers Tauruses and Sables from the 2000-01 model years. About 896,000 are on the road, the agency says.

NHTSA also says it stepped up an investigation of some 1999 Chrysler group cars to determine if there is a flaw in the transmission-ignition interlock system, allowing them to roll away when parked.

The affected models are the Dodge Stratus, Plymouth Breeze and Chrysler Cirrus and Sebring. About 217,000 are in service.

NHTSA and the manufacturer together have collected 113 complaints about a problem. They include 29 reported crashes with five claimed injuries. The agency says about 1,200 warranty claims could be related to the problem.

NHTSA reports it has opened two investigations to determine if U.S. versions of vehicles that have been recalled in overseas markets also should be returned by owners for repairs.

One involves 1.43 million General Motors cars.

The nameplates involved are the 1996-97 Chevrolet Cavalier, Pontiac Sunfire and Grand Am, Buick Skylark and Oldsmobile Achieva.

GM of Canada recalled the cars sold there because front airbags could deploy without a crash if the airbag controller got soaked with what NHTSA calls "a significant amount of water."

VW Passat Airbags Investigated

Thu, 29 May 2003 00:00:00 -0700

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is reviewing reports of air bag failures that could affect 350,000 Volkswagen AG Passat sedans. The probe is directed at model years 1998 to 2002. NHTSA received two reports that air bags did not deploy properly on the passenger side. A summary report indicated that studs and bolts failed to keep the equipment properly in place. The reviews are the first steps in a possible recall. Only two out of 10 initial reviews prompt further action.

Ford Recalls Some Lincolns Over Air Bags

Fri, 16 May 2003 00:00:00 -0700

Ford Motor Co. will recall 43,459 Lincoln Continentals from model years 1999-2000 because air bags may deploy inadvertently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Friday.

Federal regulators said air bags on some of the cars could be triggered by gravel or debris thrown from the wheels that strike the underbody near sensors.

Dealers will recalibrate the air bag sensors. Ford began notifying owners March 31.

In addition, NHTSA said General Motors Corp. will recall 44,653 midsize sport utility vehicles from model year 2003 to replace a faulty brake pipe that could fracture.

Such a fracture could reduce front brake performance, NHTSA said.

The vehicles involved are the Chevrolet TrailBlazer, GMC Envoy and Oldsmobile Bravada.

GM will begin notifying owners May 29. Dealers will replace the left-front brake pipe.

CAS Urges Consumers to Replace Passenger Airbag in 1994-95 Nissan Altima

Thu, 24 Apr 2003 00:00:00 -0700

After a protracted safety defect investigation that began in March 2001, Nissan has agreed to replace the passenger airbag in 1994 to 1995 Altimas made through March 2, 1995 which has caused moderate to severe eye injury in at 37 people. In comparison, NHTSA found only 2 reports of moderate to severe eye injury in "crashes involving 20 other passenger car models that are relatively similar to the Altima, representing approximately four million vehicles manufactured in 1994-95.

" Faced with a agency that intended to prosecute the investigation, " Nissan informed NHTSA that it will conduct a campaign under which it will offer a replacement air bag, free of charge, to all owners of the subject vehicles. The replacement air bag will be a depowered air bag that differs from the original air bag in several respects. The replacement module has a different inflator type, and there is less inflator power. The air bag volume is also reduced, and it has a different bag shape, excursion length, and fold pattern compared to the original air bag."

CAS Executive Director Clarence Ditlow said:

"The 1994-95 Altima airbag can and has caused retinal detachments and ruptured eye globes. For a defect that doesnt cause death, this is one of the worst ever. At least two passengers in these cars have suffered permanent blindness in both eyes which could have been avoided if Nissan had agreed to replace the airbag earlier. Todays action will cost Nissan over $100 million which is clearly a major factor in the company dragging its feet on a recall. But sight is priceless. The Center urges all 1994-95 Nissan Altima owners covered by the replacement campaign to get their passenger airbags replaced as soon as possible. Until they can them replaced, CAS advises consumers to have passengers ride in the rear to ensure no one else is blinded by this tragic defect."

Statistics and Controversy About Airbags

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 00:00:00 -0800

More than 120 million vehicles now feature airbags, and another 1 million new vehicles with airbags are sold each month, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a division of the Department of Transportation, states that the combination of seat belts and airbags is 81 percent effective in preventing serious head injury and 66 percent effective in preventing serious chest injury.

That means 81 of every 100 people who would have suffered a serious head injury, and 66 of every 100 people who would have suffered chest injury in a crash, were spared that fate because they wore seat belts and were in vehicles equipped with airbags.

As of January 2003, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that there have been 10,271 lives saved due to airbags. NHTSA reports that since 1990, airbag deployment has killed 227 people in low-severity crashes, including 76 drivers, 10 adult passengers, 119 children between the ages of 1 and 11, and 22 infants. Of the 76 adult drivers killed, 28 were women under 5 feet 2 inches tall, and 4 of the 10 adult passengers killed were females smaller than that height.

Depowered, or second-generation, airbags were introduced in 1998 when Ford featured them on the Lincoln Navigator. They deploy with much less force, which is intended to minimize the risk of injury during low-speed collisions. Federal law now also permits the installation of a switch for deactivating front airbags.

Airbags cause far more incidental injuries and broken bones than fatalities, but NHTSA does not track these. Those who tend to be at greater risk for these incidental injuries include small children in the front seat, infants in rear-facing safety seats in the front seat and motorists who must sit within 10 inches of the steering wheel often short, young, female drivers. Pregnant women and people with medical problems such as bone mass loss (osteoporosis) often sustain more injuries than drivers without these medical conditions.

Motorists who wear eyeglasses or sunglasses increase the risk of injury, but the American Academy of Ophthalmology suggests that drivers and passengers face other, more serious dangers by not using the proper eyewear. Even monocular people who have vision in just one eye are encouraged to keep the airbag connected.

Drivers who grip the steering wheel in the traditional 10 oclock and 2 oclock positions risk having their arms broken by a deploying airbag. Instructors now promote 9 oclock and 3 oclock hand positions as a precaution. While some drivers like to hold the steering wheel with one hand at the 12 oclock position, a deploying airbag not only will make the motorist punch himself in the face, but it will severely fracture that arm. Imagine what may happen to someone smoking a pipe or eating a lollipop.

Air Bag Lawsuits Blame Nissan for Eye Injuries

Sun, 17 Nov 2002 00:00:00 -0800

Ali Warsome is blind. This is how it happened:

In April, he was riding in a car that hit a divider on a roadway in Washington, D.C. It wasn't much of a wreck; the '94 Nissan Altima didn't even need a tow.

But the air bag struck his face with such force that Warsome's battered left eye had to be removed. Surgeons were unable to restore the vision in his right eye because "the retina was completely shredded," according to his medical records.

"I cannot see the sky anymore," said Warsome, 74, a Somali immigrant, speaking through an interpreter. "I cannot cook, I cannot walk, I cannot help my grandchildren, I don't know what to do."

To do their job properly, air bags must inflate at lightning speed, so there always is a chance they can cause an injury. But safety groups and alleged victims say the passenger-side air bags in certain Altimas the 1994 and early '95 models can inflict a terrible sort of damage.

They say the air bags are responsible for at least 40 cases of severe eye injury, including permanent blindness in one or both eyes in some instances. Often, these injuries to passengers have occurred in crashes so minor that the drivers of the cars were unharmed.

Nissan staunchly denies that the air bags are defective, saying the frequency and severity of eye injuries from them are similar to those in other cars. "We know it's a high-quality bag ... and performs well in the field," said Scott Vazin, a spokesman for Torrance-based Nissan North America Inc.

But consumer groups are pressing the matter hard. "People should not lose their vision because a driver hits a curb or has a fender-bender," said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, which has demanded a recall.

Added Clarence Ditlow, who heads the Center for Auto Safety, a consumer group based in Washington: "I've never seen a defect like this, which has such a singular injury mode -- which is physically blinding someone."

The air bags are the focus of a long-running investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which could demand a recall of nearly 200,000 cars if it finds they are defective.

Lawrence Baron, a Portland, Ore., lawyer who has sued Nissan on behalf of more than a dozen alleged victims, contends that videos obtained from Nissan during legal discovery reveal the unusual danger the air bags pose.

Baron said that unlike most air bags that unfold laterally in a pillow-like shape, the Altima air bags in question deploy rearward like a fist into the passenger area. He and others have compared the effect to that of a boxing glove thudding into a passenger's face at close to 160 mph.

Nissan switched to a new air bag design midway through the '95 model year. Consumer groups say this was a quiet decision to scrap an air bag the company knew was unsafe.

But Bob Yakushi, Nissan's senior manager of auto safety engineering, said the design change had long been in the works and was not prompted by safety concerns. As for the boxing-glove comparison, Yakushi said the air bag "deployment pattern" in the early models is similar to that in some other vehicles.

"You can't just look at shape [of the air bag] and come to the conclusion that that's the cause of the injury," he said.

Clouding the debate is the lack of thorough, widely accepted data on rates of air bag-related injuries in various models of cars and trucks. However, information gathered by NHTSA in the investigation does suggest that Altimas are different.

The agency asked Nissan and 12 other manufacturers to disclose the number of reports of eye or facial injuries from passenger-side air bags. There were 75 such reports involving the nearly 249,000 Altimas produced in '94 and early '95. There were 57 complaints for about 3.5 million vehicles produced by other manufacturers. For each 100,000 vehicles, there were 30 reports of Altima injuries and 1.5 for the other vehicles -- a ratio of 20 to 1.

But in a case of dueling statistics, Nissan has cited a New York state database that it says shows the Altima with an above-average record of avoiding air bag injuries to the face and eyes. Opponents contend that the New York data are too vague and incomplete to allow useful comparisons.

NHTSA began investigating the air bags in March 2001. The length of the probe may be due to the complexity of the case and the agency's big workload. But impatient safety advocates charge that the case also has been prolonged by the role of former agency officials in defending the air bags.

Erika Z. Jones, NHTSA's top lawyer from 1985 to '89, has represented Nissan in the defect probe. Paul Jackson Rice, who followed Jones as NHTSA chief counsel, has weighed in on behalf of the air bag supplier, Takata-Gerico Inc.

Said Ditlow of the Center for Auto Safety: "I have never seen an investigation where you have two former chief counsels working to block a recall."

Jones said in an interview Friday that there are "strict rules governing the conduct of former government employees working on matters at their former agencies, and I have always complied with the letter and spirit of those rules." Moreover, she said, officials at NHTSA "are neutral and objective and are unlikely to be unduly influenced by the fact of my participation."

On Friday, the Center for Auto Safety filed a lawsuit against NHTSA, accusing it of violating the federal Freedom of Information Act. According to the lawsuit, the agency has failed to respond to repeated requests for details of a private meeting this June between Jones and other Nissan representatives and NHTSA staff.

NHTSA officials have declined to discuss the investigation, and spokesman Tim Hurd said Friday that the agency had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment. Jones also declined to comment on the suit.

Over the years, air bags have saved 9,325 lives, according to a NHTSA estimate. But 215 people have been killed since 1990 as a result of air bags inflating in low-severity frontal crashes. Most were children or small adults, and most were riding without seat belts so their heads or chests were far forward as the air bag began to inflate.

"It's a wonderful technology, but as with any sophisticated technology particularly one that introduces energy into a vehicle you have to be very careful about how you balance the protective benefits against the potential to harm people," said Susan Ferguson, vice president for research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Although the number of air bags continues to grow, casualty figures have dropped sharply. There were 103 air bag fatalities in 1997-98, but only eight last year. Experts credit design changes in 1998 and later models that made air bags inflate with less force. Another factor has been the success of educational efforts aimed at keeping children out of front passenger seats.

Even so, more than 1.2 million vehicles have been recalled this year because of air bag related defects typically involving bags that inflate when they shouldn't or don't inflate when they should. NHTSA is involved in several other air bag investigations, in addition to the Nissan probe, involving various makes and models.

As for Nissan, it has been sued by at least 30 people claiming severe eye injuries from the Altima air bag. The company is believed to have settled most of the cases but won't say how many.

Among those settling was Norma Brainerd, the victim of an air bag injury in a low-speed crash of an Altima in December 1995.

She was en route to the Oregon coast when the '94 Altima in which she was riding struck the curb on a highway overlook. Brainerd, who was wearing her seat belt, said she recalled intense pressure on her face and everything going black.

The air bag broke Brainerd's nose. For several days, she was completely blind. Brainerd was a single mother with two young children, and in addition to the physical pain was the terror of wondering how she would make a living.

Although her condition improved over time, she remains legally blind in her left eye, has impaired vision in the right and still suffers severe headaches.

Brainerd said in an interview that although her lawsuit was settled, "to me, it's a public awareness issue at this point. If I'm supposed to be here for a purpose, making a difference, I kind of want to be able to do that."

"I just hate that it's still out there," she said of the Altima air bag. "That's the part that just makes me very angry."

The lights went out for Ali Warsome on April 28 on a trip from his home in Falls Church, Va., to Washington.

The driver, one of Warsome's sons, was attempting a sudden lane change when his Altima struck the barrier. The air bag inflated, and Warsome has lived in darkness ever since.

In June, his lawyers filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington accusing Nissan of "outrageous indifference" to the risk posed by the air bags. "No other vehicle has a track record of blinding so many passengers due to a deployment of air bags," the lawsuit stated.

Rather than recall the vehicles, Nissan has sought to hide the dangers, "hoping that as time passes and the vehicles come off the roads, the blinding of innocent victims will silently go away," the complaint said. "Nissan's plan to deal with these incidents is to settle every claim made against it."

In its answer to the lawsuit, Nissan denied wrongdoing and said it was not responsible for the injury.

Abdirizak Kulmie, one of Warsome's sons, said his father had been an extremely active man who enjoyed regular meetings with other Somali emigres at a local coffeehouse. Kulmie, who said he had polio as a child, recalled how he relied on his father's help to steady him when he walked.

Now, he said, Warsome is a shut-in who mopes about the house. Kulmie remembered the day of his father's unsuccessful surgery, a last-ditch attempt to restore his vision. Warsome asked if he would ever see again. "But the doctor said, 'There's no hope,' " Kulmie recounted.

"My father was crying, and I was crying," Kulmie said.

"I tried to calm down my father. I told my father I'm handicapped too."

Opening Arguments Delivered In Air Bag Death Case

Sat, 08 Apr 2000 00:00:00 -0700

A girl's death in a minivan crash resulted from "a terribly aggressive air bag" by an automaker more concerned about sales even the cost of test dummies than proper testing of the device, an attorney argued Friday.

The family made the claim on behalf of Alison Sanders' family, which is suing DaimlerChrysler AG over the passenger air bag that fatally injured the 7-year-old girl in a low-speed, 1995 crash in Baltimore.

The company put "an untested air bag in this vehicle to enhance the sales and improve the marketing," rushing it to market knowing it could kill a child seated near it, Peters said.

The Sander's attorney also said the automaker failed to adequately warn consumers about the dangers of air bags and exacerbated "bad engineering" by making "no effort to modify the risk to children." He said the automaker declined to crash-test the air bags out of concern it would lose a $20,000 to $25,000 dummy used in it.

"The question is and the hard part is and it's always been the hard part is how do you protect someone who's not a dummy?" Peters said.

James Feeney, a DaimlerChrysler attorney, countered that the "profoundly tragic case" was of Alison not being properly buckled in to the 1995 Dodge Caravan's front seat when her father, Robert, drove through a red light and crashed into another minivan.

Feeney said Alison was sitting "literally over the air bag when it deployed," despite "optimal" government-approved warnings inside the van that doing so inherently risked serious injury.

"That has always been a given," Feeney told jurors they will hear "the history of air bags in this country over the last 30 years."

Feeney said the air bag's design met federal safety standards, that the devices must rapidly inflate to be effective, and that warnings about proper passenger positioning have been used industrywide.

"For this vehicle to have been defective, every vehicle would have to be defective from a warning standpoint," he said.

He called Alison's death the product of "one horrible, narrow set of circumstances" and said that if t seat belts had been properly used there would have been "no injury, no fatality, no nothing."

Feeney dismissed claims that the automaker rushed the air bag into vehicles without adequate testing, saying that testing was evident in the findings that sitting too close to the deploying devices was risky.

The Sander's attorney has said "everyone was belted." He questioned whether the air bag should have even deployed in a crash involving a van he said was traveling 9 to 16 mph. Feeney said the van was moving 30 mph.

Alison died the next day after being taken off life-support, Peters said.

The trial is the second case of a child being killed by an air bag in a DaimlerChrysler minivan to go to trial. A federal jury in New York found the company partially liable in a 1995 case, but a judge threw the verdict out. That case is on appeal.

The family attorney told jurors that "this case is going to be proven from Chrysler materials" and testimony from Chrysler witnesses.

Several recent liability cases against automakers have resulted in large awards, including a $4.9 billion award to a California family against General Motors Corp. after the family's 1979 Chevy Malibu was rear-ended by a drunken driver and exploded into flames. That award was later reduced to $1.09 billion, though GM is still appealing the ruling.

The plaintiffs have not revealed how much they are seeking from DaimlerChrysler, which earned $5.8 billion on revenue of $41.7 billion last year.

Sanders is a founding member of Parents for Safer Air Bags, a nonprofit group that has lobbied the U.S. government for more explicit safety warnings and better air bags.

An estimated 93 million vehicles in the United States are equipped with air bags, nearly half of all cars and light trucks on the road.

But critics say children and small-statured adults can be dangerously vulnerable to serious injury or death from the violent force of an air bag.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that air bags have saved 5,303 lives, and have been linked to 153 deaths.

Since March 1997, most automakers have installed what Peters said Friday could have spared Alison's life: air bags that deploy with less force then previous models. Federal data show that air bag deaths have declined sharply for vehicles made since then.

Sanders has said he still carries guilt about the crash that his attorney said Friday left him screaming, "temporarily insane" and briefly seeking treatment in a mental hospital.

Study Shows Air Bags Can Cause Serious Eye Injuries

Fri, 21 Mar 1997 00:00:00 -0800

Activated air bags can inflict severe eye injuries, including blindness, even in minor car accidents, a small-scale study shows.

The research report, published in the March Journal of Ophthalmic Surgery and Lasers, describes the spectrum of air-bag-related eye injuries seen during a two-year period by an ophthalmology trauma team at UCLA.

The damage ranged in severity from bruises in the eye socket to a critically ruptured eyeball, resulting in blindness.

"The study highlights that air bags need some changes in design. They can be lifesaving, but they can also be hazardous to the eyes," said the report's lead author, Dr. Edward E. Manche, assistant professor of ophthalmology and director of cornea and refractive surgery at Stanford University Medical Center. "In one case we detailed, a pregnant woman was driving about 20 miles an hour when she crashed into another car. Her passengers had no air bags, and they were not injured. In this case, the air bag was not lifesaving, yet it certainly caused injury: the driver became legally blind in one eye."

In another low-speed accident described in the research paper, the driver's rigid gas-permeable contact lenses broke in her eyes. She needed surgery to repair a detached retina in her right eye and a torn retina in her left eye. Damage from the accident also led to the development of a cataract in the left eye and a hole in the macular region of the right retina, which created a blind spot.

The paper reviews the five cases of air bag injuries treated at the UCLA ophthalmology trauma service between 1993 and 1995. Manche, who was a visiting assistant professor at UCLA's Jules Stein Eye Institute before joining Stanford last July, co-authored the paper with two colleagues at the UCLA School of Medicine, Dr. Bartly J. Mondino and Dr. Robert A. Goldberg.

All patients suffered significant trauma to the soft tissues and bones of the eye socket and/or serious injury to the eyeball itself, the researchers found. The predominant injuries were bruising of the socket (orbital contusion) and bleeding in the eyeball (hyphema).

"Hyphema is usually caused by blunt trauma, which can damage the inner eye. It can cause immediate ocular problems and may also lead to problems many years later, such as the development of glaucoma," Manche said.

All five patients suffered hyphema, and three later developed angle-recession glaucoma, or pressure in the eye due to rips in the eye's drainage system. Glaucoma, which can slowly destroy vision, needs ongoing treatment. One patient with angle-recession glaucoma also developed a blind spot due to a macular hole.

Manche said he found it interesting that four of the five patients were Asian-American. While cautioning that the sample size makes it impossible to draw any conclusions, he speculates that Asian-Americans could be particularly prone to eye injuries for two reasons: They may tend to have a less protective eye anatomy, with a shallow eye socket and a less prominent orbital rim. In addition, since Asian-Americans tend to be of short stature, they might position their seats close to the steering wheel, where they would be hit earlier and more violently by the explosive power of a deploying air bag.

It's worth noting for further study," Manche said.

Unlike the drivers in the study, their passengers fared well. Some did not have air bags. Those who did, Manche speculates, might have escaped major injury because they sat farther from the air bag than the driver did.

In general, Manche thinks the number of eye injuries from air bags may be rising as more cars become equipped with air bags. "We're seeing more and more reports of ocular trauma from air bags in the medical literature," he said.

In their report, Manche and his co-authors call for manufacturers to continue studying the design and performance of air bags, perhaps with special attention to Asian populations.

Air Bag Injuries Plentiful, Studies Show

Wed, 19 Mar 1997 00:00:00 -0800

Anyone looking for reassurance that air bags
are good for you won't find much in injury studies recounted this week at the Society of Automotive Engineers Congress in Detroit.

Heads nearly torn from necks. Brain trauma. Multiple rib fractures. Facial abrasions. Eyelid, shoulder and breast bruises.

One man wearing glasses ended up with a piece of the plastic frame embedded in his eye.

While engineers defended air bags as a great technology that has saved many lives more than 1,700 by the federal government's count their research studies painted a grim picture of air bag-induced injuries.

Since 1990, there have been 38 child and 23 adult deaths attributed to air bags. No one can say for certain how many people have been injured by air bags, because no one is counting, and injuries have received less attention than the deaths.

Automotive researchers agree that air bag-related injuries will rise dramatically in the next few years. By one estimate, there will be more than 200,000 air bag-related injuries by the year 2000.

``Air bag injuries are still very rare, but we're going to see a heck of a lot more before long,'' said Donald Huelke, a research scientist at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, who discussed his research paper at SAE.

Most common may be injuries to faces, arms and necks, said Huelke, a professor of anatomy who has been studying air bag injuries for more than two decades. Almost 40 percent of 540 drivers hit by air bags in his study suffered arm injuries.

Less common were facial injuries, which occurred in one-third of the 540 air bag deployments. Almost all of those were minor injuries. Facial fractures are ``extremely rare,'' said Huelke.

``But eye injuries pale next to people who are having their heads nearly separated from their necks,'' Huelke said.

In a study last year, Huelke found nine women, all shorter than
5-foot-4 whose heads were almost torn from their necks when air bags deployed.

Just as frightening may be a sharp upchuck in heart injuries for frail or elderly adults in minor crashes, said Jeffrey Augenstein, a University of Miami trauma surgeon studying air bag injuries.

His study of 1,253 air bag deployments found 56 fatalities, 25 percent of which were from severe heart injuries. The majority of those deaths more than 64 percent were in low-speed crashes
slower than 20 mph.

``It's a major concern. Heart injuries will increase if we're not careful because of the large number of elderly who will be exposed
to air bags,'' Augenstein said.

A plan by automakers and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to take some of the deadly punch out of air bags should help, said Kennerly Digges, a researcher at George Washington University.

A 25 percent reduction in the bag's deployment force could reduce the risk of severe chest injury by the same amount, he said. ``We're moving in the right direction,'' he said.

Report: Air Bag Caused Death of Fetus

Wed, 30 Oct 1996 00:00:00 -0800

Federal safety officials have concluded that an air bag caused the death of an 8-month-old fetus in a 1994 car accident, according to a report in USA Today.

The fetus died after a low-speed car crash in Georgia. The pregnant woman was driving the vehicle.

Airbags have killed at least 28 children and 19 adult drivers, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This is apparently the first case linking an air bag to the death of a fetus.

Government Makes It Official: Air Bags Can Kill Children

Wed, 23 Oct 1996 00:00:00 -0700

Air bags saved nearly 500 adult lives last year, but that was not the case for children. At least 28 children have been killed by the force of an air bag during an accident.

Smaller children are at the greatest risk, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. The NHTSA estimates that air bags could kill more than 50 children a year, after passenger-side air bags become mandatory in all cars, in model year 1998.

According to a report released Wednesday, the NHTSA has ruled for the first time that a child properly using an automobile's front seat belt was killed by an air bag.

Last month, five-year-old Frances Ambrose of Nashville, Tennessee, died in a low-speed accident while correctly wearing a lap and shoulder belt in the front passenger seat of a car.

Ambrose' father and other parents who lost their children in accidents involving air bags told their stories in Washington Wednesday.

In most of the reported cases children were killed by the air bag because they were not wearing safety belts or were not in a child safety seat. There are now laws in all 50 states requiring children to be in safety seats while riding in automobiles. The NHTSA advises that all children younger than 12 ride in the back seat.

The government is encouraging auto companies to look at air bag sensor technology that could better protect small passengers. The sensor systems control air bag deployment by determining the size and position of a seated passenger.

Airbag Accident Injuries and Airbag Death Lawsuit

Wed, 23 Oct 1996 00:00:00 -0700

Airbag Injuries

Activated air bags can inflict severe eye injuries, including blindness, even in minor car accidents, a small-scale study shows. The research report, published in the Journal of Ophthalmic Surgery and Lasers, describes the spectrum of air-bag-related eye injuries seen during a two-year period by an ophthalmology trauma team at UCLA. The damage ranged in severity from bruises in the eye socket to a critically ruptured eyeball, resulting in blindness.

All patients suffered significant trauma to the soft tissues and bones of the eye socket and/or serious injury to the eyeball itself, the researchers found. The predominant injuries were bruising of the socket (orbital contusion) and bleeding in the eyeball (Hyphema). All five patients suffered Hyphema, and three later developed angle-recession glaucoma, or pressure in the eye due to rips in the eye's drainage system. Glaucoma, which can slowly destroy vision, needs ongoing treatment. In general, the number of eye injuries from air bags may be rising as more cars become equipped with air bags.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that since 1990, airbag deployment has killed 227 people in low-severity crashes, including 76 drivers, 10 adult passengers, 119 children between the ages of 1 and 11, and 22 infants. Of the 76 adult drivers killed, 28 were women under 5 feet 2 inches tall, and 4 of the 10 adult passengers killed were females smaller than that height.

Airbag systems were developed for the 5 ft 8 inch 180 lb. male, and only tested to be sure they met their needs. Unfortunately, this did not help shorter people, who have to sit closer to the steering wheel than 10 or 12 inches. Nor did the requirements consider children, or those who have medical reasons why they are in danger from the force of an exploding airbag. New medical findings are now available that illustrate the danger of airbag injury to all people. Injuries are far more prevalent than deaths, but the data is difficult to evaluate because accidents and injuries are voluntarily reported to the National Automotive Sampling System and include information not investigated and verified. But these are the best information available. Injuries are not recognized as an issue or tracked by NHTSA.

Dr Maria-Segui Gomez, leading airbag researcher, reported that for female drivers, airbags create a net protective effect only when a vehicle's speed exceeds 52 to 62 Kmh ( 32 to 38 mph). Ms Gomez published this study in the American Journal of Public Health on October 2000, and she also stated that these speeds may be conservative (i.e. may be higher) because of limitations in the data. At lower speeds, the potential for injury from airbags outweighs the benefits. This included all female drivers, not just the shorter ones defined in NHTSA's endangered group.

If you or a loved have suffered an injury from an airbag, please fill out the form at the right for a free case evaluation by a qualified product liability attorney.