Air bag deployment
You could be in an accident and your driver’s side or passenger’s air bag might not go off? Do you have a case if this happens? Well, one has to start with the idea that not all crashes trigger the air bags to go off. Usually, it has to be a front impact. If you are broad sided, and the car is equipped with side air bags, you would think they would be deployed if the impact was severe enough. Air bags themselves can cause injury, so simply the fact that they didn’t go off, maybe not necessarily be a bad thing. They are particularly dangerous to young children.
Assuming you were in an crash severe enough to cause the deployment of the airbags and the type of impact (such as a frontal crash), didn’t cause the air bags to be deployed, the investigation isn’t over. One would need to have the vehicle inspected by an engineer to determine why the air bags failed. Such an investigation could be quite expensive, so the crash and resulting injuries would need to be serious enough to warrant the expense. Further, one would need to show that either the injuries could have been prevented altogether by the air bags going off, or that the injuries were enhanced or made worse by their failure to deploy. This could be problematic as well, and would require detailed analysis of both the engineer and the medical doctors involved in treatment of your injuries.
It should be researched as well by going on line and seeing if that particular vehicle manufacturer and that particular make and model of the car has seen other air bag failures. The national safety transportation board (NTSB), might need to be notified of the failure to deploy. You also would be making a case against the vehicle manufacturer and that would most likely take the case out of state court and put you in federal court. Are you ready to go head to head with the attorneys for General Motors or Ford Motor company?
The crash would have to be severe and you would have to have sustained a life threatening injury or be permanently damaged to warrant a personal injury lawyer to spend $5,000 or $10,000 up front, in the investigation of why the air bags failed to deploy. Such an investigation is not financially prudent for your typical soft tissue injury case.
If you have questions about being in an accident, contact the experienced personal injury lawyers at Karp & Iancu, S.C. today for a free consultation. There is never a fee unless you win your accident case.
