Ford has recalled 29,000 Ford Escort cars from the 1995 model year for an airbag defect.  Two bolts that are intended to secure the passenger airbag module to the instrument panel (dash assembly) are missing.  In a crash where the air bags deploy, the passenger air bag can come out of the dash,which increases the risk of personal injury to the passenger.

Isn’t it amazing that despite all the claims about excellent quality control and quality being “Job One”, mistakes like this still happen?  And this isn’t just an issue about poor fit and finish, but a safety defect that can injure you.  The dealership fix is simple: secure the bolts like the factory was supposed to.

The government’s recall number is 94V-197.

There is no single “airbag law” that covers all laws, rules and regulations that apply to airbags. However, some people refer to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 208 (FMVSS 208) as the “airbag law” since it contains the primary regulations for occupant crash protection passed by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Although FMVSS 208 is about 80 pages long, its core is represented by injury criteria measured by a crash test dummy during testing.

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)

3 Questions to Ask Before Determining if an Airbag Caused Injury or Wrongful Death

Although airbags are intended as a safety device, government documentation confirms they have caused significant trauma during vehicle accidents and are responsible for hundreds of wrongful deaths.

This shouldn’t come as a major surprise, given airbags deploy at speeds sometimes exceeding 200 mph. After experiencing an airbag deployment, many consumers say the airbag appeared to explode and compare the sound to a shotgun blast.

When questioning an airbag’s performance during a vehicle accident, you should analyze 3 critical questions before determining its role in contributing to serious injuries or wrongful death.

Question #1: Should the airbag have deployed?

Deployment depends on many factors, including your type of airbag. If it did not deploy and should have, you may have a “failure to deploy” or “non-deployment” case. In such a situation, the airbag would have deployed if the airbag crash sensor or other components had not failed.

One reason for deployment failure is a crash sensor malfunction due to faulty wiring that connects the crash sensor to the electronic control unit. Sometimes airbags don’t deploy because the car company did not conduct adequate crash tests when designing the airbag crash sensor.

In fact, many airbag systems sold to consumers were never tested in car-to-car crash tests, even though such crashes occur every day.

If the passenger airbag deployed, but the driver airbag did not deploy, the vehicle may contain a defective “clockspring” or coil. This electrical device installed in the steering column beneath the driver airbag transmits an electrical current to deploy the driver airbag. Reasons for a malfunction include design defects, inadequate testing, improper installation and improper adjustment.

In some cases, a passenger airbag will not deploy even though the driver airbag deployed and a passenger was sitting in the seat. This often occurs when a passenger presence detection sensor doesn’t work properly.

If the airbag deployed, but should not have deployed, you may have an “inadvertent” or unwarranted low-speed deployment. These can occur because of airbag sensor or other electrical defects.

Unfortunately, some manufacturers used inappropriate sensor combinations that are overly susceptible to low-speed, localized impacts, such as a vehicle striking a pothole or curb. Other sensor systems fail to detect crashes into a pole or tree. This may be the result of not having enough crash sensors due to excessive cost-cutting at the car companies.

Question #2: Did the airbag deploy late?

When an airbag opens late, impact occurs at a closer range. The extreme force can cause catastrophic injuries, even though late deployments often occur in minor accidents.

Late deployments can often be prevented using additional sensors and/or changes to the algorithms of electronic sensors. In some cases, the vehicle’s “black box” can confirm a late deployment took place.

Question #3: Did the airbag have specific crash safety features?

Crash safety features are added to airbags to reduce the risk of injury during deployment. These include items such as airbag inflators that inflate less forcefully, tethers that significantly reduce “bag slap” injuries, and vents that decrease pressure inside the airbag.

An investigation into these features is necessary to determine if manufacturing defects and quality control problems caused or contributed to your injuries.

In addition to crash safety features, the airbag system must also work together with the other parts of the car. For example, airbag crash sensors depend on the vehicle having a good structure or frame so the signal is received soon enough to avoid a late deployment.

Also, the instrument panel (I/P) or “dash” needs to be designed so that the knees and legs are not injured, while keeping the body properly positioned. And, when the airbag deploys, it must not create additional hazards for other components. For example, some passenger airbags are known to shatter the dash and send the pieces flying toward the passenger at high speeds.

You should get answers to these questions for any potentially defective front, side, curtain or rollover airbags. You deserve a safe and effective airbag during any type of a crash.

Although the process leading to airbag deployment has become more technical over the years, the airbag safety sensors’ job has remained the same.

In earlier vehicles, these airbag sensors were basic switches that responded to changes in velocity as the vehicle slowed down during the crash. Once two sensors “closed” to confirm a crash was taking place, electrical current was allowed to flow to the airbag modules.

In newer vehicles, electronic sensors measure a vehicle’s deceleration (negative acceleration), process it mathematically through a computer algorithm, and then compare the measured values to the values stored inside it from crash testing. If the measured values indicate the crash is more severe than the stored crash tests, the control module allows electrical current to flow to the airbag modules.

Once the electrical current flows to the airbag modules, it heats up a “squib” within the inflator that has a small filament inside a container of chemically explosive or flammable material. Once the filament gets hot enough, the chemicals begin burning. This sets off a larger reaction of a chemical called sodium azide within the inflator, which rapidly produces nitrogen gas, along with numerous byproducts.

In some vehicles, the sodium azide inflator was replaced with an inflator using pressurized gas, usually a combination of helium and argon. With either type of inflator, the gas from the inflator then fills the fabric airbag that was folded over the inflator.

As the gas fills the airbag, it increases in size, eventually breaking out from behind its plastic cover and inflating to its maximum size. Driver airbags are generally shaped like a round pancake – just larger than the diameter of the steering wheel – and are normally about 12 to 20 inches thick when filled. Passenger airbags are generally about 2 to 3 feet wide, and fill the space between the passenger and the dash or windshield.

Since passenger airbags are usually 2 to 4 times larger than driver airbags, they require a more forceful inflator to fill that larger size in the same amount of time.

For frontal airbags, the process of sensing the crash and inflating the airbags is usually over in less than one-tenth of a second. As the forces of the crash propel the driver/passenger forward into the airbag, it begins to absorb the energy by compressing and letting some of the gas out through the fabric or through specially designed vent holes.

This explains why many people involved in a vehicle accident in which airbags deployed remember the distinct chemical odor of the inflation gas and seeing smoke in the car.

For side airbags and rollover airbags, the process is similar. A sensor in the side structure of the car, or sometimes inside the front door, detects the rapid deceleration from the side or the vehicle beginning to rotate upwards during a rollover crash. Electrical current is then sent to the side airbags or to the rollover airbags (depending on the type of crash), which causes those airbags to deploy. Although the chemicals and gases may be different than for front airbags, the inflation process is very similar.