Air Bag Failure

While air bags can be very useful in saving a life, a defective air bag can cause more harm than be helpful. Created to lessen the severity of injuries in the event of a car or truck accident, air bag failure can cause even more devastating injury. For instance, if an air bag does not deploy as designed, the victims of an accident can suffer catastrophic injuries or even death. If an air bag deploys at the wrong time, it can cause serious injuries or even cause an accident. Any time a motor vehicle accident and air bag accident occurs, the victim should contact a truck accident lawyer. This could involve no air bag accidents or air bag failure. Accident lawyer Neil Burns and Roshan Jain have the experience needed to protect the rights of victims involved in air bag accidents.

What Do Air Bags Do?

Air bags were designed to help protect accident victims from serious head injuries or other injuries during an accident. In theory, it is safer for your head or other body part to be slammed into an air-filled pillow than the steering wheel, dashboard, or other hard surface. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration claims that over twenty-five thousand lives have been saved by front air bags between the years of 1987 and 2008 alone. The risk of fatality in an accident is said to be as much as sixty-one percent less when the occupants of a vehicle use both air bags and seatbelts.

What do Air Bags Not Do?

Replace seat belts. They are simply added protection.

How do Air Bags Work?

Air bags are made of nylon, and fill with nitrogen immediately upon a collision. It takes one-twentieth of a second for an air bag to fully deploy. This rapid inflation can also cause injuries, however. If an air bag deploys suddenly while a vehicle is sitting still, serious bruising and even broken bones may occur, but if it deploys unexpectedly while a vehicle is in motion, it can actually cause an accident to occur. Also, if an air bag fails to deploy or delays in deploying during an accident, victims can suffer much more serious injuries than if the air bag had deployed properly.

How do Air Bags Cause Injuries?

There are many factors which can cause an air bag to be defective. Here are a few:

1. If the crash sensors send false information to the air bags, it can cause them to delay in deploying, or not to deploy.
2. If the manufacturer did not test the air bag on various test dummies, the air bag may not work for people of all weights and sizes.
3. If there are no tethers to make the air bag inflate to the proper shape, the victim can suffer injury.
4. If the design of the air bag prohibits it from inflating upwards, serious injury can occur.
5. If the inflators cause the air bag to inflate too suddenly or too forcibly, injury can occur.

If any of these defects have caused you or someone that you love to suffer injury from an air bag, give Burns & Jain a call today at 617-227-7423.