Airbag Grenades! (This is an expanded version of a post from a couple days ago.) “Its a royal embarrassment. It totally undermines trust in the agency. --- Joan Claybrook, former National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Administrator Automotive Airbag Recall: Another U.S. Government Lunacy; Lots of Cohorts Elsewhere This Time If you haven’t checked whether your car or others of interest to you are on the recall list, listen up! If you have checked, are you sure the latest list was used? The huge airbag recall has been partially obscured by the Election, loads of other Government lunacies, etc., but various automotive industry experts think that it already is or probably soon will balloon into the biggest automotive recall in world history! Estimates increase often, and the announced number of recalls just went up again to a total of 14.3 MILLION vehicles worldwide! A large percentage of them, maybe 50% or more, probably happen to be in the U.S., but most of those were produced by foreign companies. In addition, others may be recalled as sort of a safety play. The Japanese manufacturer of the airbags, Takata Corporation, is the primary culprit. Their Mexican facilities appeared to be the main source of the defective bags that have been used by many manufacturers. However, now there seem to be problems at some of their other locations, including in the U.S. Supposedly, Takata has known about the problems for about 10 YEARS!!! Probably Honda knew around then too. (Some older models than that are among the affected vehicles. For many types of goods and services, sometimes that is because defects don’t appear at all or only in small numbers until certain time, mileage, etc. limits have been exceeded. For some reason, it seems to occur or be more of a danger in fairly old cars in hot, humid areas. The oldest cars seem to be some 2000 BMW models.) There have been apparent cover-ups, and now Takata may have huge financial losses, legal problems, etc. It may collapse. In addition, shortages of replacement bags are screwing up the recalls, and pursuant to the Government suddenly issuing “Hurry Up” letters, the passengers’ bags in many vehicles just are being disconnected for now, and a sign is supposed to be posted saying not to sit there. If someone sits there anyway when the bag would be needed, too bad! There also are shortages for new car production. Reportedly, the Feds have known about various aspects of the explosions for at least 6 years. There also are plenty of other foreign cover-ups, stupidities, etc. too --- evidently by both companies and governments. Of course, sometimes others are “innocent”, but only because they mooch off the U.S. and other countries for massive amounts of goods and services, including in the area of accident analysis. There are three confirmed deaths, and a fetus that was mere days from being born also died when the mother was killed. There are other suspected deaths, and at least 139 confirmed or suspected injuries so far. Among the problems that make the numbers rather hazy is that sometimes accident investigators didn’t realize that this could be a cause. For example, it may have appeared that an injured or killed driver lost control of the car for some other reason. Another is that Takata doesn’t even seem to know all the models and/or model years that have their airbags. Auto companies have sent notices to many owners, although often only in the last year or two. More are being added often. Government “geniuses” finally published a list that included over 4,000,0000 affected vehicles, but “brilliantly” managed to forget over 3,000,000 others!! They added them soon thereafter, but what if some people checked the first or other lists, thought their car is unaffected, and didn’t know about the revisions? Another problem is that the explosions mainly seem to occur in fairly hot, humid areas, and many recalls are for only those kinds of areas. Of course, many recall notices for just about any reason are ignored, lost, etc. Furthermore, what if the weather in various areas changes? What if someone drives or moves to such an area? What if the car ownership changes from someone in a “safe” area to someone in a “danger” area? What if ……… I don’t know much about the automotive industry, but I have seen massive regulatory bungling, waste, lying, cover-ups, excuses, etc. ad nauseam in other areas. Matters that are rather trivial, and which should take only a small number of days, may drag on for years, even decades, or they never are done at all even if some employees are supposedly handling such matters. Often regulators make matters worse, spend enormous amounts of time and money on very low probability events, etc. Once again, some of these general problems seem to be the case. Here are a few links to articles about this article. bankrate/financing/insurance/feds-bungle-air-bag-recall-site/#ixzz3HspisARR nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/Vehicle-owners-with-defective-airbags-urged-to-take-immediate-action blog.caranddriver/massive-takata-airbag-recall-everything-you-need-to-know-including-full-list-of-affected-vehicles/ usatoday/story/money/cars/2014/11/13/takata-airbags-honda-death-five/18963827/
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 04:32:28 +0000