For example, an engineer can often very quickly determine that one of his or her parts is defective or fails to comply with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS), but that determination doesn’t start the five-day clock running. This is true even if the engineer designed the part and knows more about it than anyone else.  The engineer’s manager and executive and even the chief engineer can agree the part is defective, and that usually still doesn’t start the clock running.  The clock doesn’t begin running, according to the car companies, until they say it starts running: they usually make an official “determination” that there is a safety defect by a committee or very high level executive after input from lots of people who have no business deciding whether a defect exists, including the bean counters (financial staffs).  Either the part is defective or it is not – how much the recall costs or deciding the best way to tell consumers about it does not change whether the defect actually exists.

Most people don’t realize that the time between when the engineer decides a part is defective and when the final committee “officially” determines it is defective can be many YEARS.  Yes, you read that correctly: YEARS.

During that time period, the car company can be working on figuring out why the defect occured, whose responsibility it is, and designing a fix for the defect.  However, during all that time, additional consumers are exposed to the defect without even knowing about it, which can literally kill them.  Even if a fix is not readily available, notifying consumers about the defect can at least allow them to not use the vehicle, or, if they are considering buying one affected by the defect, they can buy a different vehicle.  In some cases, the defect affects only a certain seating position; if the consumer knew about the defect, they can then make sure no one uses that seat until the fix becomes available.

In some cases, the car companies who dragged out the time before “officially” determining there was a defect then limited the affected cars to a certain mileage level.  Thus, the longer they dragged it out, the less cars they had bring in for the recall, since the passage of time would mean that some cars would not longer qualify for the mandatory inspection and/or repair.

I don’t know how the people who intentionally delay telling consumers about a safety defect can sleep at night!

Unfortunately, Chrysler refused to make clockspring replacement mandatory for all these vehicles.  Instead, they negotiated a deal with the federal government requiring replacement of the clockspring only for those minivans having less than 70,000 miles.  For those having more miles, replacement isn’t required unless the air bag warning lamp is on, and the system diagnoses a defect in the clockspring.  Unfortunately, it’s possible that your warning light is not on when you are involved in a crash, and yet the clockspring fails and prevents deployment of the driver airbag.  Thus, you may not know you have a problem until it’s too late.  This can result in devastating personal injuries or death.

To compound the problem, Chrysler did not issue this recall promptly after discovering the first defective clocksprings.  After numerous reports of problems, the government opened its formal defect investigation into this issue in August of 2000.  However, Chrysler did not issue the recall until more than two years later.  Of course, the longer it took for them to issue the recall, the less vehicles would qualify for the mandatory replacement of clocksprings for vehicles having less than 70,000 miles.

The government’s recall number is 02V-293.

However, a car can still be defective even if it complies with FMVSS 208, as it represents only a minimum standard; carmakers are free to exceed the requirements of FMVSS 208, and they should clearly do so.  State laws relating to negligence, strict liability (defective products), breach of warranty, and others impose a duty on the car companies to use reasonable care in designing and manufacturing their cars and avoiding defects in them.  As an airbag lawyer, I see many cases where the manufacturer claims to have complied with all applicable safety standards and yet there are airbag defects.  These problems range from unwarranted deployments and late deployments to airbag-induced injuries and failure to deploy.  Furthermore, millions of cars, trucks, vans, and SUVs have been recalled to fix airbag safety defects, even though each of those vehicles was originally claimed to have met its safety standards.

The injury criteria used in the federal standards have evolved in the past decade as frontal airbag systems have evolved, but are summarized below for the 50^th percentile male test dummy. There are also injury criteria for other size crash test dummies, including those representing a 5^th percentile (small-stature) female, 6 year old child, 3 year old child, and 12 month old child (using the CRABI Child Restraint Air Bag Interaction test dummy). Additional information can be found in Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations, section 571.208, as well as part 572.

INJURY CRITERIA FOR 50^th PERCENTILE MALE HYBRID III TEST DUMMY

Pre-depowered airbags (generally prior to 1998 model year):

1. All portions of the test dummy shall be contained within the outer surfaces of the vehicle passenger compartment
2. Head Injury Criterion (HIC) limit: 1000 (36 ms maximum)
3. Chest acceleration limit: 60 g’s
4. Chest compression (deflection) limit: 3 inches
5. Femur loading (force) limit: 2250 pounds

Depowered airbags (generally beginning with the 1998 model year):

1. All portions of the test dummy shall be contained within the outer surfaces of the vehicle passenger compartment
2. Head Injury Criterion (HIC) limit: 1000 (36 ms maximum)
3. Chest acceleration limit: 60 g’s
4. Chest compression (deflection) limit: 3 inches
5. Femur loading (force) limit: 2250 pounds
6. Neck flexion (forward bending) moment: 190 Nm
7. Neck extension (rearward bending) moment: 57 Nm

  Advanced airbags (phased in beginning generally with the 2004 model year):

1. All portions of the test dummy shall be contained within the outer surfaces of the vehicle passenger compartment
2. Head Injury Criterion (HIC) limit: 700 (15 ms maximum)
3. Chest acceleration limit: 60 g’s
4. Chest compression (deflection) limit: 63 mm (2.5 inches)
5. Femur loading (force) limit: 2250 pounds
6. Neck tension limit: 4170 N (937 pounds)
7. Neck compression: 4000 N (899 pounds)
8. Combined neck injury (Nij) limit: 1.0 (for any combination of tension-extension, tension-flexion, compression-extension or compression-flexion)

This recall applies only to those vehicles in certain “salt belt” states, primarily in the Northeast, Midwest and Atlantic regions.  Owners of these vehicles in the other states get only an extended warranty and a sticker for their warranty booklet, but no mandatory replacement of the safety sensor.  The government’s recall number is 08V-690.

The most frequent criticism of rollover airbags is their failure to deploy. This is often happens when an airbag system doesn’t have a rollover sensor.

Failure to equip a vehicle with a rollover airbag can itself be a defect. This is particularly true for vehicles with a higher risk of rolling over, such as sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and vans.

Unfortunately, some people are told their vehicles have side curtain airbags or see the “airbag” logo on the interior trim, without realizing not all of those curtain airbags will deploy in a rollover accident.

Keep in mind, salespeople at dealerships may tell customers side impact airbags will deploy in rollover crashes, even when it is not true. That kind of statement can cause the salespeople and the dealer to be held responsible for misrepresentation or fraud when the airbags don’t deploy in a rollover accident. This remains true even if the car company is at fault for failing to install a rollover airbag.

In addition to crash safety sensors, other defects include rollover airbags that “catch” on a piece of plastic trim, causing them to fail to deploy completely or properly. Some rollover airbags also include “pockets” that are not well-pressurized, allowing you to suffer severe head injuries in those locations.

In some cases, rollover airbags failed to deploy because internal components came apart during the rollover, causing the inflation gas to escape rather than inflate the airbag. This can result in you being partially or completely ejected, or being injured from hitting the inside of your car.