It is quite surprising that in recent years many people have lost their lives as the result of defective airbag related injuries. In a bid to minimize injuries in car accidents, vehicle airbags were introduced with design features that should provide drivers, and in many cases the passengers, of automobiles with protection when there is a car accident. Increasingly, lawyers have seen an increase in claims for compensation for injuries suffered from the use of defective airbags.
Airbags are supposed to prevent injuries – not cause them!
Side and front airbags are expected to inflate when the vehicle is hit or it strikes an object with a certain amount of force. The airbag is supposed to be designed to prevent the driver and the vehicle’s passengers from banging their heads on the dashboard or other protruding surfaces.
Even though this added vehicle safety feature is designed to stop injuries, there are so many cases every year of individuals suffering defective airbag injuries. The injuries have been so extensive that automobile manufacturers now put warnings in the vehicles to educate consumers about the hazards that come with airbag usage. Sometimes, the airbags fail to inflate when they are supposed to, so they no longer become a useful safety feature.
An airbag defect might be
- a flaw in design
- a mistake made during the process of manufacture
- an assembly or installation mistake
An airbag can fail to function correctly in a number of ways. It may deploy itself too forcefully in an accident that occurs at low speed; it may deploy much too late or simply not at all, in a moderate to high speed crash or deploy quite unexpectedly when there is no accident about to take place.
- There are known defects that cause these situations such as
- inflators that are overpowered
- unsecured airbags
- lack of accuracy in ECU software
- crash sensors not being strategically located.
Airbag injuries are usually confined to the arms, head and torso but some are very serious despite the so called safety feature label and can in the worst accidents lead to death.
Injuries caused by defective airbags might include any combination of the following
- traumatic brain injury
- airbag burns
- blindness
- hearing loss
- broken bones
- asthmatic attacks
- decapitation
If you or somebody you know has suffered as a result of injuries received from a defective airbag, you may gain from asking for assistance from an attorney who has experience in dealing with personal injury cases involving defective airbags. The victim may be entitled to compensatory damages, which are calculated in relation to the harm that has been done, including paying for additional medical bills, financing lost earnings, financing lost future earning potential and the physical and psychological that goes with the trauma. Many of the accidents with defective air bags are life changing and may ruin a victim’s life forever.
