Defective Airbag Attorney

Airbags are designed to save your life in the event of a car crash. However, defective airbags can cause greater harm than good. Should these safety devices fail to deploy, it can result in major injuries for the driver and passenger.

If you believe an airbag defect played a part in injuries you received during a car crash, it is best that you seek the help of a product liability attorney in Texas. At Bryan K. Harris PC, our defective airbag lawyers will pursue your claims for all damages you are entitled to under the law.

Holding Airbag Manufacturers Accountable for Defective Safety Products

In the U.S., dual frontal airbags are required in all new vehicles. These safety features are required to protect the driver and the passenger from front and side impact. Manufacturers are required to meet the minimum safety standards to ensure airbag effectiveness during a vehicle collision.

However, some safety products have managed to pass quality control despite having serious design flaws or manufacturing defects. These products should not be put on the market and sold to consumers because they pose a risk to the lives of drivers and passengers.

Airbag Defects

Some examples of airbag defects are:

• Airbag having a horizontal inflation path
• Failure to test crash with a range of dummies
• Lack of internal tethers
• Faulty crash sensors
• Overly powerful inflators

Causes of Airbag Failure Injuries

Below are a couple of examples of what can go wrong with airbags when there is a defect or failure:

Failure to deploy: Every driver and passenger of a motor vehicle equipped with airbags has the right to expect that this safety feature will deploy in the event of collision. Airbags are designed to go off during frontal or side impact.

However, there are unfortunate circumstances in which the airbags fail to deploy, resulting in serious physical injuries to the driver and passenger. Upon impact, these vehicle occupants are likely to hit their head on the steering wheel, dashboard, or other hard surface inside the vehicle.

Late deployment: There are instances where airbags deploy but just too late. In cases of late deployment of airbags, the occupants are more likely to suffer greater injuries than those whose airbags have not deployed.

The inertia produced by the sudden stop of the vehicle will be immediately followed by a force produced by the late-deployed airbags. You can only imagine the opposing forces that immediately succeed each other inside the vehicle.

Evidence at the scene of an accident that suggests late deployment of airbags include bent steering wheel (due to impact with the driver’s head), deformed airbag module cover, and injury marks on the person of the occupants (particularly on the head and chest areas).

Overpowered deployment: Some airbags deploy with too much force. With an overpowered airbag, drivers and occupants are susceptible to more serious injuries than one would sustain if the airbag deployed with the correct amount of force.

Inadvertent deployment: Another common defect among airbags is the inadvertent deployment where the safety device goes off when it is not supposed to. This can occur when there is a very small crash or no crash at all. As a result of the needless deployment, the defective airbags cause injuries to the vehicle’s occupants.

At Bryan K. Harris PC, our Corpus Christi defective airbag lawyers have a proven record of aggressively pursuing our client’s claims. We understand that taking on auto manufacturers can seem like a daunting task, but our firm has the experience and resources to do just that.

If you or a loved one has been injured or killed by a defective airbag, talk to a product liability attorney today by calling 361-992-9646 or toll free 1-888-587-9910.