Following GM’s long-delayed recall of 1.6 million cars for ignition switch defects that could cause airbags not to deploy in a crash, Nissan has recalled nearly 1 million vehicles for another type of defect that similarly could cause the front seat passenger’s airbag not to deploy in a crash.
Nissan said it’s aware of at least 3 crashes where the front passenger seat was reportedly occupied but the airbag did not deploy. The company also said it wasn’t aware of any fatalities related to the defect. However, the Houston Nissan recall lawyers at Denena Points, PC note that the failure of the airbags might have led to increased severity of front seat passenger injuries in these crashes.
In the Nissan vehicles affected by the recall, the defect that’s the source of the airbag problem is reportedly a federally mandated occupant classification system that’s supposed to determine whether a passenger occupies the front seat and also detect the size of that passenger. If the system determines that there is no front seat passenger, or that the passenger is a small child, it will turn off the airbag. But apparently factors such as high engine vibrations when the car is idling, or the seat becoming occupied when it was previously unoccupied, or a person sitting “out of position” can cause the system to determine that there’s no passenger (even when there is one) and turn off the airbag.
Our Houston Nissan recall lawyers understand that many people sit out of position. Out of position is basically where you don’t sit up straight, facing front and center like a crash test dummy. People with any kind of injuries or conditions that cause them pain in the normal seating position and many elderly people sit “out of position.”
Last April, Nissan had already recalled over 80,000 vehicles from the 2013 model year because the front passenger airbag might be turned off due to a strain gauge error. Nissan kept getting customer complaints about the occupant classification system for the airbags malfunctioning even after that April recall. So the company continued to monitor the problem, but concluded in September that there was no defect; it was just a case of occupants sitting “out of position.” (Christopher Jensen, New York Times, 3/27/14)
Our Houston Nissan recall lawyers emphasize that the current recall indicates that the company has decided the problem was due to a defect after all. Nissan’s change in stance might have been prompted in part by the intense scrutiny falling on GM and the NHTSA now after admissions that GM knew of their airbag defect and the NHTSA should have known for at least a decade before conducting the GM recall. One study of U.S. FARS (Fatality Analysis Reporting System) data has found more than 300 fatalities in the recalled GM vehicles that occurred when the airbags didn’t deploy properly. Letting a known defect go uncorrected might lead to hundreds of deaths and even more serious injuries.
The Nissan vehicles affected by the company’s current recall are:
Click the link to read more about the huge GM recall for a similar defect and the major controversy that surrounds it.