True, I can understand your points. I would like to mention that the older the airbags get, the more degraded they get (from humidity for both Takata and Volvo airbags). It’s worse in the southern humid regions which is why they got priority for the takata airbags replacement.
So the longer we let this issue go, I think it’s going to start happening more and more. There can be millions of cars on the road.
Even if the risk is low, I think it’s a pretty unnecessary way to die. And probably painful too, you might just bleed out painfully until you die.
And the airbag can even go off in a minor collision, and kill you if you’re unlucky! (Which is actually what happened in the Volvo airbag recall). I will give a link but the photos are graphic. Print - NHTSA Case Viewer
We def deal with a lot of risk to live our lives. Driving is one of the top killers, but we gotta do it. But when a device designed to save kills, and there’s really no way to be warned of it or tell, how do we decide to disconnect the airbag vs leave it plugged in for the chance it will either save or kill us. Seems like an impossible calculation. And I suppose it’s got further ramifications, if children are in the car, how can they make any decision on their risk tolerance, since theoretically they’ll be at risk of shrapnel, or how will they be taken care of if their parents are killed?
We will have to wait for either the company or the law to decide for us. Goodwill or legal ramifications. Depending on your view of it, could the decision to not fix the airbag be compared to how GM neglected to recall their faulty ignition switches leading to some deaths? Or is that case different solely because the ignition switch recall cost way less than replacing airbags ?
I’m guessing there’s a car-sales family dynamic involved involved with these hyper-safe gadgets. If the only customers were single men, gonna be hard to convince that group to spend extra $$$ to prevent something they can prevent by just being more careful, or simply find the risk acceptable. After all most single men are perfectly happy living in dorm-room like conditions, don’t need much beyond that. However married men are concerned with more than just themselves; they have to worry about the wife and kids safety too, as well as keeping the in-laws satisfied. This all makes it much easier to sell a car with these hyper-safe gadgets, even w/the add’l cost.
It’s certainly a complex situation. I get what you’re saying and fundamentally, I don’t like being exposed to more risk either. But as someone else put it, we need to be realistic about what can/should be done. While it’s true the potential for failure increases due to environmental stress and age, those cars are also getting older and more likely to be removed from service for whatever reason. So while the risk is going up, the remaining population of them is going down.
The biggest issue I see with recalling every single unit ever made by company X is that they will immediately fold and go bankrupt. Now who’s left holding the bag? (pun intended) It would be far better to limit it in some way that keeps them in business and motivated to perform some level of replacement.
I can understand your points. Perhaps with this latest recall, they can inspect the airbags and reuse the good ones. I was mistaken that the ARC airbags were degraded from humidity, that was the takata airbags. According to the article, some ARC airbags had faulty quality control (the proper inspection was not performed) and welds weren’t done right causing the shrapnel explosions.
One explosion was in a 2015 Chevy, but another one was in a 2021 vehicle and a pregnant woman got killed. (Rubbing salt in the wound, her collision was something like 17 kmh in the city and she had every chance of walking away if it wasn’t for an airbag with reportedly incorrect welds)
Edit: I am sorry, I may have gotten some details wrong. It was a 2015 Chevy and the death happened in 2021 to somebody’s mother. (So a 5-6 year old car) I’ll try to find the info about 17kph crash)
They have an inspection technology to check the welds, using that from the start would have been good but at least the cost can be minimized if they check/reinstall the older airbags. Not sure how feasible that is.
It sounds like ARC is a bit negligent too, they didn’t do a good job of tracking their airbags production.
I hope it can be resolved in a way that is good for both parties but makes people less scared. Though industry having too much a hand in safety decisions can unfortunately go badly so they’d have to be aware of that. (FAA trusted Boeing too much so the 737 max was allowed to fly with avoidable dangers present, and an inadequate “fix”/recall was released which failed to prevent a second crash. Boeing at first blamed the pilots in the second crash, but it was later discovered that the pilots had done the correct procedure to respond to the malfunction but could not reasonably save the plane)
Ford tried that with Pinto explosions and it didn’t go well for them. How could auto manufacturers avoid shockingly high awards when sued for design or manufacturing failures? I can see billion dollar awards as deterrents. One billion dollar loss plus the lost sales through bad press may be one reason why the auto builders and the government continue with the current system.
True, but that was wholly their design and therefore liability. It’s a bit different here as the problem is with a purchased subassembly they did not design. That’s not to say they won’t be dragged into it as they will have the deeper pockets but I believe their liability will be significantly reduced compared to something they had complete control over.
BTW- I’m suggesting the government authorities limit the recall effort, not the manufacturers. If the manufacturer is just following mandated recalls, any liability will be significantly reduced.
My dad had a pinto wagon. He just put a trailer hitch on it. Seemed to work.
Once again there are always unintended consequences so beware of big brother deciding anything. People were getting killed because they didn’t wear seat belts or drove crazy. So then we added too powerful air bags and killed people’s that way. Then toned them down. Now find out some are faulty and are killing people. It will not end. A $5 on off switch, my kingdom for an on off switch. But that would be too easy.
When I worked, everyone that bought a new computer, I assessed a $25 up front fee to pay for their eventual recycling. Maybe there should be a $1000 fee on new cars to pay for air bag recalls and replacements. But then there are always unintended consequences.
Any alternative is inefficient. The auto industry and government chose the method they use and it generally seems to work. I’m not worried about the few 20 year old cars still on the road being covered.
Yep just another terminally dense unwashed person killed. Except the driver was not the owner. And the owner had been contacted 104 times, or 200 times, or 300 times, depending on which fact you grab on to. Still that’s 24 deaths since 2009 or less than two per year. Still a risk but not a great risk, and that was for well publicized Takata bags.
This is an old report though that has been hashed over before. Who do we charge? Takata, Chrysler, the dealer, owner fir negligent homicide? Maybe dmv for continuing to renew the plates. And some of those recall notices look surprisingly similar to the warranty scams. I have to open them and read them first before throwing them in the file 13.