Articles Posted in Florida

Takata has been accused of knowing its airbags were defective long before the deaths and injuries, according to two former employees of the Japanese manufacturer.

The workers told the New York Times that Takata knew about the defects as far back as 2004. The company learned one of its airbags exploded and ejected metal pieces at a driver in Alabama, so it apparently began secret testing at its U.S. headquarters located in Michigan. The testing was conducted outside normal work hours and was never disclosed until recently.

After three months of secret testing, employees realized the problem was with the welding on the airbag’s inflator canister, but the investigation was shut down and employees were told to destroy all testing data.

Four years later Takata reported the faulty airbags in a regulatory filing. In November 2008, the first Takata airbags were recalled.

The law requires that car manufacturers report safety defects to the government within five days once they are identified. In 2008, Takata’s airbag recalls slowly unraveled, but last month the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gave these recalls a big push. NHTSA issued a consumer advisory which urged drivers to immediately check if their vehicle’s airbags had been recalled and to arrange for a repair as soon as possible.

This year has seen the most auto recalls in U.S. history. To date, 11 car manufacturers have recalled more than 14 million vehicles worldwide. In regards to Takata, four deaths have been linked to the defective airbags and at least 139 people have been injured.

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The first round of recalls involving vehicles equipped with certain defective airbags manufactured by Takata came to light in November 2008. When addressing this recall, the company cited studies from 2008 that showed the risk of defective airbags in certain vehicle models.

The most recent news surrounding the Japanese manufacturer focuses on former Takata employees who have stepped forward to disclose that the company allegedly performed secret tests in 2004 when the first reports of defective airbags occurred. According to the employees, secret tests were ordered by Takata executives that indicated the airbags could rupture upon impact and release dangerous debris. These former employees have also accused the executives of ordering the test results to be thrown out and erased from company records.

Sadly, these defective airbags caused more than 130 injuries and four deaths. It is highly likely that Takata face legal action from those who were injured by the airbags before the 2008 recall.

Due to the alleged reckless, criminal and likely punitive conduct of Takata, even older cases, including those that would normally be barred by statute of limitations, could be viable against Takata.

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A 2-year-old was killed while trick-or-treating on Halloween after he was hit by bus.

According to a Polk County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman, the Lake Wales toddler was in a stroller Friday evening with two other children when the adult pushing them across a street realized he had dropped his cellphone. The man stopped the stroller in the median and told the children to stay in it while he went to grab his phone. The boy managed to get out of the stroller and ran to where his grandmother was standing alongside the road.

A bus driver failed to see the toddler in the street and hit him. The boy was pronounced dead at the scene.

No charges are pending at this time.

State Farm conducted a review of more than four million records of motor vehicle collisions that took place between 1990 and 2010. According to these records, there were 115 children killed in pedestrian collisions on Halloween night across the nation. This totals to an average of 5.5 children killed each year on Halloween. On a normal day of the year, an average of just 2.6 children are killed in pedestrian-related collisions. This data confirms that the risk of a child being killed in a pedestrian accident on Halloween is more than double than on any other day of the year.

A whopping 60 percent of fatal Halloween pedestrian crashes occur between 5:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. Children between the ages of 12 and 15 are the most likely to be killed in pedestrian accidents on Halloween. Kids ranging in age from five to eight were the age group with the second highest number of fatalities, with a total of 23 percent of the deaths. These deaths were found to occur more often in the middle of the street on Halloween than on the corners, which suggests that many fatal accidents were the result of children running out into the streets.

Drivers should be aware of the increased risks to kids  on Halloween night. Driver’s need to slow their speed and avoid using electronic devices. Distractions of any nature can prevent drivers from seeing child trick-or-treaters who might dart into the middle of the road.

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