An investigation into the rules and regulations of how rental car companies fix and maintain their cars was prompted by the death of two sisters who were killed instantly when they lost control of their rental car after it caught fire and sent them into on-coming traffic. Unbeknownst to them, the PT Cruiser they were driving was under recall notice for risk of under-hood fires.  After a five year lawsuit, Enterprise admitted fault, and the parents of the sisters were awarded a damages-only settlement for $15 million.

The NHTSA said that while “dealers have a legal obligation not to sell a new vehicle after they have been notified of the recall by the manufacturer until the defect has been remedied, NHTSA does not have the legal authority to require consumers, including fleet owners like rental car companies, to have recalled vehicles fixed.”

While no law is in state that requires car rental companies to make repairs on recalled vehicles before renting or selling them to consumers, the Federal Trade Commission Act states that companies “shall not engage in unfair trade practices. And, not repairing a defective vehicle after it has been recalled, before renting it out, is an unfair trade practice, and is a violation of the act.”

NHTSA investigated 10 major rental car companies about their recall practices. 90 days later, they found that:

• Enterprise fixed 65% of their vehicles, while 35% remained unfixed
• Budget fixed 53% of their vehicles, while 47% remained unfixed
• Hertz fixed 34% of their vehicles, while 66% remained unfixed
• Ford did not comment, claiming the results would negatively impact sales and their relationship with rental car companies.

Senator Charles Schumer of New York announced that he is introducing the Safe Rental Car Act, a law that would hold rental car companies to the same regulations that prevent car dealerships from selling defective cars.

According to the statistics recorded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in 2007, 41,059 US citizens died on US roads, while more than 2 million people were seriously injured. What’s more, car accidents are now the leading cause of death for people 35 and under.

Getting into a car accident in Manhattan is unfortunately all too common, thanks to the borough’s  heavy traffic.  Alcohol and drug abuse are additional factors which contribute to the high rate of car accidents in this borough of New York. Car accident lawyers Manhattan are ready to help car accident victims and their families.  They will do everything in their power to ensure you are compensated for any personal injuries or damages to your property you endured.

Auto accident lawyers (Brooklyn lawyers are not an exception) stress that innocent people should not suffer because of the other drivers’ negligence and inexperience.  It is important they add, that whether you are certain the accident was not your fault or whether it may have been, you speak to an attorney to learn your legal rights.

If you or someone you love has recently become a car accident victim, you or they may have valuable legal rights, entitling you to financial compensation for injuries and damages you sustained.  Please fill out our online form or call 1-800 LAW INFO (1-800-529-4636) to discuss your case with one of our auto accident lawyers today- they are waiting to hear from you.

Failure to Deploy

Airbags are designed to deploy when a moving vehicle abruptly decelerates or stops. Sometimes, however, airbags fail to deploy, leaving passengers exposed to the impact of the crash. Serious head and bodily harm can result if vehicle occupants hit the steering column, dashboard, window or other part of the car.

No Collision

Airbags have been known to deploy no apparent reason at all. Sometimes minor bumps or potholes in the road can activate airbags. Unnecessary deployment of an airbag can distract, obstruct, disorient or knock out the driver.

Harmful Chemicals

Airbags are inflated with a harmless gas, but severe chemical burns have been reported by vehicle occupants. This occurs if the gas, a chemical propellant, isn’t filtered properly. Vehicle occupants have reported chemical burns, head injuries and eye damage.

Injury From the Airbag Itself

Auto manufacturers make airbags to accommodate people who are 5’8” in height and weigh 180 pounds. Studies show smaller vehicle occupants are at increased risk for serious injury because they sit closer to the steering wheel and dashboard. Taller vehicle occupants are at less risk because they sit farther away from the steering wheel and dashboard.

If a defective airbag has seriously injured you or a loved one, the airbag manufacturer and auto manufacturer may be at fault for design or manufacturing defect, and you may be entitled to compensation. For more information about injuries caused by a defective airbag, please call our experienced auto accident lawyers (Suffolk County) at 1 (800) YOURLAWYER or contact us online for a free consultation.

When you purchase a vehicle, you expect that certain standards are upheld in the design and manufacturing processes. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has sets of rules and safety standards for crash avoidance and crashworthiness of vehicles. However, the automobile manufacturer lobby often overpowers public safety concerns. For example, in the wake of the massive Firestone tire recall and new data about sports utility vehicle rollovers, legislation was proposed in the U.S. Senate that would require manufacturers to alert the government about dangerous car defects — or face jail time if they deliberately failed to report defects or issue a recall and the defect caused death or serious injury. Sadly, the bill never made it to a vote due to the pressure mounted by the auto industry and the millions of dollars in soft money campaign contributions made by the industry. Driver safety continues to be compromised in favor of auto manufacturer profits and politics.

Our car accident lawyers fight for the rights of victims. We believe that each and every auto accident should be fully analyzed to determine if car defects caused the accident or contributed to serious injuries or death.

The manufacturers of Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV) are under increasing criticism for not improving the safety of these popular vehicles. Because the manufacturers do not want to pay compensation for personal injury or wrongful death, manufacturers aggressively defend SUV rollover accident cases and attempt to blame the driver rather than accept responsibility for the vehicles’ defects.

More than 30 of the 2002 SUVs tested by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration earned just one or two stars, including the top-selling SUV, Ford Explorer, and other SUV models such as the Chevrolet Tahoe, Toyota 4Runner, Nissan Xterra, Suzuki Samurai and Sidekick, Jeep, and Mitsubishi Montero.

Minivans and other types of vans are some of the most unstable cars on roads today. Despite their high rollover risk, minivans do not have proper roof structures or rollbar devices and most do not meet the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration roof safety standards for automobiles. Most minivans roll over when taking emergency action after steering in one direction and then being forced to rapidly correct in the opposite direction, in instances such as avoiding another vehicle, an animal, or a person. The result often times is a rollover. Rollovers occur because of the absence of a lower center of gravity and a wider track width, which allows most automobiles to skid, spin and recover. But minivans and SUVs cannot safely undergo these maneuvers without rolling over.

The rollover risk of 15 passenger vans is exceptionally high and has contributed to hundreds of serious injuries and deaths. On June 1, 2004, Dr. Jeffrey Runge, head of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), issued a warning to users of 15-passenger vans because of an increased rollover risk under certain conditions. Similar warnings were issued in 2001 and 2002. When filled with passengers, or driven above 50 miles per hour, the vehicles become substantially more unstable than SUVs or pickup trucks. Large vans are five times more likely to roll over when filled than when only the driver is in the vehicle. The greater passenger weight in a fully loaded van raises the van’s center of gravity and shifts it toward the rear. As a result, the van has less resistance to rolling over in an accident or emergency situation. Placing any load on the roof also raises the center of gravity and increases the likelihood of a rollover. The NHTSA found that eighty percent of those who died in 15-passenger van rollovers nationwide in the year 2000 were not wearing their seatbelts.

During the development of the Bronco II, it became clear that Ford would not meet the company’s stated safety and engineering design goals. The car was too high and too narrow to “reduce rollover propensity” or “respond safely to large steering inputs which are typical of accident avoidance or emergency maneuvers.” The Jeep CJ-7 was the Bronco II’s image vehicle, and Ford tried to duplicate the CJ-7’s performance and characteristics despite the Jeep CJ-5 and CJ-7 having rollover propensities significantly higher than other vehicles in their class. The Jeep and subsequently the Bronco II had very low Stability Index ratings (a factor of height and width of wheelbase).

As early as February 1981, Ford engineers identified the Bronco II’s poor stability index as a key problem with the vehicle. For an additional cost of $83 per vehicle, Ford could have made a substantially safer car. These changes were rejected by Ford management because they would have delayed production and sale of the vehicle. Ford did not widen the SUV three to four inches until 2002, almost 20 years after the engineers’ warnings. Before a single vehicle rolled off the assembly line, Ford executives at the highest level knew that the Bronco II was unsafe, and would roll over, injure and potentially kill a significant number of the people who bought it.

From, 1997 and 2000, the Ford Motor Company released a series of model light trucks: the F-150, the F-250, the Expedition and the Lincoln Navigator that were equipped with substandard door latches. These door handles, released by Donnelly Corp, lacked the ability to withstand force. A defective door latch recall was scheduled during March 2000 and plans were made to increase the torque of the latch springs by 130%.

A month later, Ford cancelled the defective door latch recall because one of its engineers decided the door latch could pass an alternate test that requires only that handles withstand a brief pulse of pressure instead of prolonged force. Furthermore, even though the improved handles were released for subsequent models of the trucks, owners of trucks with a defective door latch were never notified about the hazard.

Approximately 100 plus individuals were killed or injured when the “type III” door latches on GM vehicles failed, resulting in occupants being ejected from the vehicles. Mitsubishi was found guilty of leaving out evidence about its knowledge of door latch failures in its vehicles. Chrysler has also settled cases involving defective door latches.

These types of injuries can be prevented if the seatback designs and manufacturing defects are replaced with proven safety measures that have been available for many years. Problems with automobile seatbacks can be attributed to non-sturdy and defective parts, including seatbacks, seat tracks, and recliner mechanisms.
Seatbacks should be able to keep the vehicle’s occupants safe by keeping them from moving forward and impacting the interior of the vehicle in a collision, or even worse being completely ejected. The safety standards for automobile seats are viewed as being too lenient and out of date to protect vehicle occupants from injuries. It is not required for automobile seats to go through crash tests and is so weak it leaves safety experts wondering why new standards are not made. Tests that have been conducted on vehicles show that most seatbacks are unable to safely withstand impacts, especially bucket seatbacks and split bench seatbacks.

Seatbacks are most affected by rear-impact collisions because a number of seatback defects can occur. A particular study found that in rear-impact collisions that had a front seat collapse, occupants ended up being ejected from the seat even at low speeds. Some experts feel that if seatback strength were increased, it would limit the number of seatback defects that result from collisions. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wishes to strengthen the federal seatback requirements.