Another vehicle pulled out of a side street directly into the path of our client’s 2005 Ford Taurus. The resulting accident caused the driver air bag in the Taurus to deploy, inducing significant injuries to the neck, face and eye, including facial bone fractures, nasal fractures, cervical spine injuries, diplopia, and other facial trauma.

According to the data from the black box (Restraints Control Module), the driver seat belt was buckled, but there was a fault within the driver seat belt pretensioner at the time of the collision. Our investigation also revealed a concern regarding whether the air bag should have deployed at all.  Furthermore, the evidence indicated that the driver air bag deployed at a higher force level than it should have, and that the actual deployment time was later than it should have been.