Auto Defects / Crashworthiness

August 18th, 2017

Mazda recently issued a recall of nearly 80,000 cars and SUVs, shortly after an initial recall in January, to replace defective airbags.  The defect arises from dangerous Takata airbag inflators, which are located in the front passenger side of certain 2007 through 2009 and 2012 …

April 22nd, 2015

As one of the largest automotive recalls in American history, this blog has been covering the massive and tragic GM ignition switch failure–which has killed at least 84 and injured at least 157–for more than a year. As we previously reported, GM had been covering up …

April 15th, 2015

Last year saw more auto recalls in the United States than any other year in the country’s history (one trade publication has even dubbed 2014 “the infamous Year of The Recalls”). This blog has been covering the massive Takata airbag recall–which has officially claimed the …

January 21st, 2015

In 2006, eighteen-year-old Natasha Weigel was killed (along with a close friend) when the Chevrolet Cobalt she was driving left the roadway and struck several trees. It was clear immediately that the vehicle’s air bags did not deploy as they were supposed to, but the …

November 12th, 2014

Back in July of this year, we published an article about a recall that happened at the same time as the 20 million-vehicle GM recall, which despite being nearly as dangerous was not as well-chronicled. While GM was trying to deal with cars that powered …

September 24th, 2014

The last time this blog posted an article on the massive (20 million cars and counting) recall issued by GM earlier this year, it was to report that federal regulators were beginning to suspect a cover-up among executives at the automotive company. More troubling, from …

July 23rd, 2014

As a consumer concerned with product safety, you might assume that it is illegal for corporations to knowingly cover up dangers associated with their goods and services, but you’d be wrong. Following dozens of highly publicized recalls–cars, automobile air bags,pharmaceuticals, and baby toys, to name …

June 9th, 2014

While the massive General Motors recall–involving over 20 million vehicles in only one year–has been getting a lot of news coverage (and a few posts on this blog), another recall may be nearly as dangerous for drivers. In fact, air bags manufactured by the Takata …

April 16th, 2014

In the month or so that has elapsed since we reported on General Motors’ massive recall, the automakers’ problems have not improved. Our article’s headline claims that 1.6 million vehicles have been affected, but apparently that estimate was on the low end and on April …

March 19th, 2014

General Motors has recently announced a recall of 1.6 million of its vehicles, some of which are linked with thirteen deaths over the past eleven years. And federal safety regulators have announced that since 2003, they have received 260 complaints–two per month–specifically about how these …

June 19th, 2013

Since January of 2013 we have written two posts about automobile recalls: one, “Toyota Settles Class Action Lawsuit for More Than $1 Billion,” detailed the company’s recall of up to 3.2 million vehicles and its subsequent settlement of a class action lawsuit with customers whose cars …

May 29th, 2013

On April 24, 2013, Subaru of America, a subsidiary of Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., announced a recall of all 2014 model year Subaru Forester automobiles (those built between January and March 2013). This came on the heels of a discovery in Vancouver, Washington in which …