As the safety equipment in vehicles becomes increasingly complex and technology transforms, equipment can sometimes have a greater propensity for failure and defects. Despite advancements in auto technology, safer vehicle efforts don’t always coincide with the bells and whistles of emerging equipment.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), air bags are usually designed to deploy in collisions near the front, of the vehicle. In addition, many auto manufacturers design air bags to deploy when temperatures reach a certain height, in the event of a fire, to prevent injury inducing explosions within the air bag module.
Although air bags are a piece of auto equipment meant to improve the safety of a vehicle for auto occupants, defective air bags can also increase risk of injuries. Some of the malfunctions, defects and design inadequacies may cause issues that include:
Problems associated with defective air bags can cause harm and injury in and of themselves. Additionally, faulty air bags can also fail to safeguard vehicle occupants, as designed. Air bags that don’t deploy in the time frame necessary to protect drivers and passengers may not give occupants the protection needed to prevent serious injuries during a collision or rollover accident.
With deployment speeds of up to 200 miles per hour, air bags can cause serious injuries and even death if they do not perform the way they should or if they deploy unnecessarily.
While proper function is vital to offering optimum safety during an accident, defective air bags can injure occupants if designed improperly, manufactured inadequately or not installed correctly. Some of the injuries vehicle drivers and passengers could endure should a defective airbag malfunction, may include:
While air bags that deploy unnecessarily can cause serious injuries, air bags that fail to deploy at all are also a dangerous occurrence. Air bag deployment failures are sometimes caused by malfunctioning crash sensors. Defective crash sensors can fail to function properly because of bad wiring, faulty electronic control unit or poor design and testing of the vehicle’s crashworthiness and because of the way the air bags react to a collision. In some instances, one air bag will deploy for one vehicle occupant while another will fail to protect a passenger or driver in another portion of the car. Manufacturers may even cut corners when it comes to crash sensors, providing an inadequate number throughout the vehicle or by using sensors that fail to deploy air bags during a collision.
New technology can often determine whether there was a malfunction with the airbags or crash sensors in a vehicle or whether an air bag deployed too late.
If you or someone you loved has been seriously injured because of a bad air bag or defective equipment associated with an air bag, call our defective air bag attorneys in Austin, San Antonio, Killeen and statewide at 888-335-7492, contact us online or visit one of the 11 office locations for our product liability attorneys in Texas for a free consultation.
Our experienced attorney, professional consultants, investigative team and caring staff will help you uncover answers to the questions surrounding your air bag malfunction injuries while seeking just compensation for your injuries and loss. We care. We can help.