Driving Safety: Air Bag Defects

Megan Roth

Contributor

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Automotive defects are among the most dangerous product defects in any market (because driving is so risky to start with). One of the most common automotive defects is airbag failure.

The airbag was invented in 1952 and was intended to serve as an alternative to seatbelts. Instead of replacing them, the super-beneficial safety component became a compliment to seat belts. And a compliment it is.

In 1989 the US government recognized the benefits of the handy-dandy devices and passed a law requiring all cars manufactured on / after that date to have air bags installed.

When an airbag’s working properly it an be extremely beneficial and is credited with saving thousands upon thousands of lives each year. Yet, despite its many upsides, it can also pose certain risks.

For starters, there’s no guarantee that your airbag will work properly (it’s sort of like a parachute; the vast majority of the time they’ll go off as intended but there are those few occasions when they don’t work exactly as intended).

Unfortunately with airbags, such has been the case on more than a few occasions.

And even when they are working properly, they aren’t guaranteed to save you from harm. In fact, sometimes they may actually cause harm.

When airbags are deployed they inflate very quickly and come out of the steering wheel (dashboard, door panel or wherever else they may come from) with considerable force. That force can actually drive the airbag into the passenger and cause bruising, abrasions and even broken bones.

Yes, the aftermath of a defective airbag can be brutal, which is why there is extensive safety testing in place and watchdog groups hovering about, making sure such testing is met and enforced.

Some times, that testing has proven effective in terms of catching a defect before the product even hits the market. Other times, auto makers aren’t so lucky. Such was the case in 2008, when Nissan and Infiniti recalled approximately 200,000 vehicles for an airbag defect.

Such recalls don’t mean that all products are defective; instead, it’s more a precautionary measure because there’s no guarantee that they aren’t.

In fact, there’s a long list of defective air bags that resulted in automobile recalls in the past couple decades.

And within the last decade alone, those recalls have extended from just from air bags to including defective side air bags as well.

As with anything, there’s no guarantee that one vehicle is safe and another isn’t (heck, if they’re on the market they all passed safety testing and recalls wouldn’t even be necessary, right?). The best you can do is stay up-to-date on recent recalls and act accordingly in the event that an incident or a recall involving your vehicle does occur.