Your airbag is an essential safety tool for you and your family. It is supposed to inflate within a fraction of a second when you are in an accident to protect you from injuries. For 69 million car owners, however, that is not the case as their airbags are subject to a massive recall. Finding out your car may be unsafe be very frightening. You need to take action to protect yourself and your loved ones.
Japanese airbag manufacturer Takata recently added 3.3 million faulty airbag inflators to its recall list, bringing the grand total to 69 million vehicles recalled. An airbag’s usefulness stems from the speed that it inflates, which is generated by a chemical reaction that fills the bag with air via a small explosion. Unfortunately, improperly designed airbag inflators can fracture, putting drivers and passengers at substantial risk. This is the largest series of automotive related recalls in US history.
The stress and anxiety of a recall notice
Large safety recalls may be regular, but that does not lessen the impact when you see your vehicle is part of a recall. You want your vehicle to be made safe.
What can you do to protect yourself and the people you care about from a defective airbag and the injuries or fatalities it could cause? Can you trust the manufacturer to act appropriately now considering they have not put consumer’s safety first previously?
The first response if you receive a recall for an airbag or other part is to contact your local dealership to get the part replaced as soon as possible. If the recall is regarding a safety issue, ask the dealership for a loaner vehicle if the part cannot be fixed quickly. If the dealership is unable or unwilling to fix the part quickly or provide alternate transportation, contact the manufacturer to ask where you should take the vehicle to for repairs and to obtain a loaner vehicle.
You can also contact an attorney who understands automobile recalls to discuss possible legal rights from the recall. Manufacturers have faced a significant amount of negative publicity and regulatory investigation for not immediately recalling dangerous parts in vehicles. This negative publicity and investigation hopefully will have an impact on the manufacturers and cause them to protect consumers by issuing recallsquickly in the future.