Senator on Takata airbag recall: When it explodes, metal shreds become 'shrapnel'
WASHINGTON (Sinclair Broadcast Group) — Millions of motorists are driving cars with Takata airbags that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says have, in some instances, killed motorists.
Tens of millions of those airbags with defective inflators now need to be replaced. So why is the federal government letting some auto makers sell brand new cars with those same airbags?
"It is absolutely ridiculous that new cars are being sold with an airbag that they know is going to be recalled in two years, and so the buyer of the car is not getting what they buyer thinks they're getting. They're getting a car with a defective part," said Sen. Bill Nelson (D- Florida).
Video shows a Takata airbag exploding when it should have inflated during a test at Batelle Labs.
According to a congressional report, metal thrust from those airbags has killed at least 13 motorists and injured another hundred people.
"We've seen that when it explodes, and inflates the bag, it's such a force that all the metal in the device shreds, and it becomes shrapnel," Sen. Nelson described.
Sen. Nelson thinks companies who sell cars ought to disclose the issue to buyers.
"What we have discovered in the commerce committee is that Takata engineers covered this up for years and years. There ought to be people going to jail," he said.
"This is a core safety feature of teh car. It's one of the things that's supposed to make the car safe enough to drive in," said Paul Bland, executive director at Public Justice.
The NHTSA ordered a recall of about 70 million cars in the U.S., making it the largest recall in America. Yet Volkswagen, Fiat Chrysler, Toyota, Mitsubishi, and possibly other automakers continue to sell brand new cars with the same airbag known to become defective over time.
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Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx declined Sinclair's request for an interview, but Sen. Nelson posed similar questions to Foxx this week on Capitol Hill.
"I don't think we have got enough intestinal fortitude around here to stop the sale of new cars," he said.
Foxx said in a hearing that the NHTSA can't ban automakers from selling new cars with defective airbags and it can't even force auto dealers to disclose that information to car buyers. Under a consent order Taka has not admitted it's at fault but the company has agreed to recall all of the new cars' airbags by 2018, the same year it will stop manufacturing them. It doesn't sit well with advocates for auto safety.
"American families today are going into dealerships buying new cars, thinking they are buying a safe car, perhaps they are about to get on the road for a summer vacation and they don't know there's a deadly airbag in their vehicle," said Cathy Chase, VP of government affairs with the Advocates for Highway & Auto Safety.
Takata didn't reply to Sinclair's request for an interview. Of the four automakers that were contacted, only Volkswagen responded, saying it's following NHTSA's guidelines, which allows for the sale of cars with Takata airbags through 2018.
