Takata airbags still on millions of cars even after 37 deaths

Dangerous airbags still in people’s cars

As shown in a recent study, millions of automobiles with faulty airbags are still on the roads, despite years of warnings and at least 37 fatalities reportedly connected to the safety equipment. The possibility of malfunctioning Takata Corp. air bags exploding in an accident burst into the global car sector’s most complicated and far-reaching safety disaster in history not nearly a decade ago.

Takata airbags, which may deteriorate in heat and humidity before exploding when enabled, killing passengers with shrapnel, are still in 14 million US cars and millions more around the globe. At least 37 deaths and 450 injuries have been connected to the reportedly faulty components throughout the world, according to U.S. car safety officials.

Honda, Toyota, Ford, General Motors, Tesla, and Mercedes-Benz are among the automakers engaged in the investigation. Despite a multi-year campaign to recall and repair the airbags, which were put in 42 million vehicles throughout the world, the problem persists. 19 people died in the United States, while others were reported from all over the world, notably French Guiana, Nigeria, Brazil, Australia, and China.

What representatives had to say about it

Sean Kane, president of Safety Research and Strategies Inc. in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, claims that while the recall system in the United States is faulty, systems are essentially non-existent in other countries. According to Chris Martin, regulatory and legal communications manager at Honda in the United States, when automobiles pass to second, third, and even fourth owners, it becomes more difficult for carmakers to track them down.

In the United States, automakers are obligated to notify owners about recalls via postal letters, using addresses based on state vehicle-registration systems. Most manufacturers utilized several types of driver information, such as insurance and repair-shop data, for the Takata recalls, which are updated more often than state systems.

According to a January report by the NHTSA-appointed monitor supervising the campaign, they’ve also utilized e-mail, postcards, certified mail, and targeted social media advertisements. In the United States, they have gone to very unusual lengths to fix these, utilizing a variety of outreach techniques, including going door to door, says Chris Martin, Honda’s regulatory and legal communications manager in the United States.

Other Takata-related fatalities may have gone undetected in regions of the world where the problem isn’t well-known or where there isn’t the same regulatory and safety framework as in the United States, according to Honda’s Martin. There is no way to know for sure until someone tells us or a government official, he continues. He also says that it is possible that people cleaning up the parts after a collision have no idea what they’re looking at.

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