Over 2.1 million vehicles have become the subject of a safety recall recently issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), according to a recent article in the Detroit Free Press. Experienced Colorado car accident attorneys are monitoring the situation closely, familiar with the ways in which hidden vehicle defects can cause or worsen serious injuries.
The recall focuses on a problem that causes airbags to deploy when they are not needed and, in some cases, with excessive force that causes injuries rather than preventing them. As many as six deaths reported to the NHTSA may already have been caused by the defect.
The recall affects vehicles including the Acura MDX, the Dodge Viper, the Jeep Liberty and Jeep Grand Cherokee, the Honda Odyssey, the Pontiac Vibe, and Toyota Corolla, Matrix, and Avalon models manufactured in the early 2000s. Some of the vehicles were included in a previous air bag related recall, which attempted to address problems with an electronic component that governed when and how the air bags deployed in a crash.
So far, the NHTSA’s data has revealed about 400 cases in which the air bags deployed inadvertently, including about 39 deployments in vehicles that had been repaired under the previous recall. Nine of the cases were caused by a defective inflator within the air bag system, and in three of those situations, drivers suffered injuries as a result of the air bag rupturing. No one was killed in those incidents.
Owners of potentially affected vehicles can visit the NHTSA’s safety recall website, SaferCar.gov, for more information.