Boston Injury Lawyer Blog
Honda Motor Co. said that it is expanding its U.S. recall of vehicles with Takata air bags to include another 2.6 million autos. The action, which had only applied to certain areas of the country with high humidity, has now gone national. The automaker says it will replace the air bag inflators on the vehicles.
The air bags, made by the Japanese supplier, are at risk of inflating too forcefully. Should this happen, an air bag explosion might occur, causing shrapnel from the safety device to shoot out in the vehicle, potentially causing debilitating even fatal injuries. At least five fatalities have been blamed on the faulty air bags. All of the vehicles involved with these fatalities were Hondas.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been calling on automakers with vehicles that have Takata air bags to make needed fixes to the safety devices. Honda is the only one to comply with the regulator’s demand so far. Ford, BMW, and Mazda haven’t decided whether to call for a national recall, while Chrysler has refused, as has Takata.
Honda’s recall expansion now affects 6 million of its vehicles. With the other Takata air bag-related recall initiated by other automakers, about 11 million vehicles have been impacted in this country. Another five million other million autos have been recalled elsewhere in the world.
In Massachusetts, please contact our Boston personal injury law firm if you think that a faulty air bag may have caused your serious injuries or the death of a loved one.
An air bag that deploys too fast or too hard can cause burns, abrasions, broken bones, and even severe eye and facial injuries. Shrapnel exploding from an air bag can also cause painful, disfiguring, and debilitating injuries. Already, plaintiffs seeking compensation have filed auto products liability lawsuits.
In one Takata air bag lawsuit, Stephanie Erdman is suing Takata for personal injury. She says that after a collision with another vehicle activated the air bag in her 2002 Honda Civic, shrapnel and metal pieces sliced at her nose and eyebrow. Some of the metal parts became embedded in her jaw. Erdman has partially lost her eyesight and is undergoing numerous surgeries to rebuild her eyelid.
In a wrongful death case, the family of Hien Tran is suing both Honda and Takata. Tran died in October, a few days after her Honda Accord struck another vehicle and the air bag in her auto exploded. According to a medical examiner, one of the reasons Tran died was because of “stab-type wounds” she sustained from air bag shrapnel. The family’s air bag defect case is accusing Honda of not adequately warning vehicle owners about the possible risks involved even as it put out recalls and found out about air-bag related injuries that had hapened.
Our Massachusetts air bag defect lawyers would like to offer you a free case consultation.
Honda: Only 2.6M vehicles under expanded recall, The Detroit News, December 8, 2014
Takata, Honda sued over death linked to faulty air bag, Reuters, November 17, 2014
Two More Lawsuits Brought against Takata, Honda for Faulty Air Bags, Auto World News, October 21, 2014
More Blog Posts:
NHTSA Probes Graco Car Seat Recall, Boston Injury Lawyer Blog, December 2, 2014
Consolidation of Xarelto Injury Lawsuits Gets Opposition from Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Massachusetts Drug Injury Lawyers Blog, December 5, 2014
NHTSA Wants a Nationwide Recall of Autos With Takata Driver’s Side Frontal Airbags, Boston Car Accident Lawyer Blog, November 19, 2014
