Parker, Waichman, Alonso LLP

Home » Topics » Product Liability » Defective Car Seatbacks

Defective Car Seatbacks

Thousands of Americans are injured each year due to the weak and defective designs of car (automobile) seats and their functioning components, such as seatbacks, recliner mechanisms and seat tracks. Car manufacturers continue to ignore injury statistics and their own engineers by refusing to adopt inexpensive design revisions that would drastically improve the safety of car seats, especially in rear end accidents.

Many of the cars on the roads today have seating systems that often directly cause injuries or exacerbate other injuries. When a car a hit from behind the car and is thrust forward but the occupants are rapidly thrown backward. This backward force puts force on the car’s seatback, which should remain upright to cushion and protect occupant’s bodies.

However, many seatbacks are poorly designed and often collapse when this force is exerted on them. A collapsing seatback can result in an occupant being ejected from the car or losing control of the car. Commonly the occupant is thrown around the car injuring themselves or other occupants and can make it difficult for accident victims to get out of the car.

As cars have become lighter to meet fuel economy requirements, so have car seats. The result has been a corresponding reduction in the minimal level of protection provided by a grossly inadequate standard. While seat belts and shoulder harnesses are required to meet dynamic crash test conditions in which the test vehicle collides with a concrete wall at 30 miles per hour, no similar requirements exists for the seat back in rear-impact collisions.

General Motors has become most notorious for producing defective and flimsy seatbacks. Researches have found that just about every front seat produced by General Motors from 1970- mid1990’s was designed to collapse rearward in impact in which there was a speed change of 15 miles per hour or greater. In fact, GM’s own tests document this seat collapse in crash tests.

If you or a loved have been injured by a defective car seatback, please fill out the form at the right for a free case evaluation by a qualified personal injury attorney.