Ford airbag kills mother in 9mph crash, 7 yr old son awarded $3.3 million -cnn

[ReiAyanami]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/11/13/airbag.verdict.ap/index.html

i know an airbag deploys in milliseconds, but the impact of the airbag should not be like a car hitting your face

serves ford right since they're the ones that calculate the cost of safety vs the life of each customer, but then again most other car companies probably do the same tyler durden style.

 

[Phokus]

Is it me or has all the major bad automotive news come from Ford cars? What a worthless company. They need to cut their costs and focus on quality control/R&D

 

[chess9]

That's a tragedy that should have never happened. That poor kid....

Of course, I would have been singing hosannah's if it had been my step-mother. j/k

-Robert

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Phokus
Is it me or has all the major bad automotive news come from Ford cars? What a worthless company. They need to cut their costs and focus on quality control/R&D

I'm not defending Ford or any Car maker but this unfortunate accident, that I agree should've never happened was when Air Bags were still a relatively new technology. Many changes were made as a result of such incidents as this one. There were others and not just Ford back then. Engineers are people too and very falable unfortunately.

 

[mastertech01]

Ford has been improving the Airbag systems and how they work in the past few years. Little can be done about the rare incidents on the older systems. Today they have adjustable pedals on many vehicles, which allows a shorter person to sit further away from the steering wheel while still able to reach the pedals. They have second generation airbags which deploy at a slower speed when the accident occurs at low speed. They have passenger seat sensors in 2004 which turn off the passenger air bag when an infant car seat is installed or a person of small stature is seated there, automatically. They have seat belt pretensioners that pull the seatbelt snugly around the occupant when a crash occurs. They have optional side impact and overhead airbag systems as well.

I dont know what they could do to reverse the designs of the older Federally mandated and approved systems. But whenever you rely on any electronic device to do the split second thinking you never know what kind of error may happen. Just look at your high tech computers and all the flaws in them. How much are you willing to pay on top of the huge price engineered into safety today to GUARANTEE Perfection? Should they install 10 redundant systems like a Boeing 747 braking system?

Im sure all the manufacturers face similar questions and challenges to make your automobile as safe as one can reasonably expect and financially afford on a mass production scale.

 

[AEB]

Originally posted by: Phokus
Is it me or has all the major bad automotive news come from Ford cars? What a worthless company. They need to cut their costs and focus on quality control/R&D

Ford puts more money in R&D than anyone else in that competition where colleges are presented with a challenge. This year the challenge was to take an expidition and make is more ecomonic, and cleaner so they are doing what they can. Just bad luck

 

[Orsorum]

Originally posted by: ReiAyanami
serves ford right since they're the ones that calculate the cost of safety vs the life of each customer, but then again most other car companies probably do the same tyler durden style.

That's how most companies do it, if my memory serves me correctly.

 

[Fencer128]

Ford puts more money in R&D than anyone else in that competition where colleges are presented with a challenge. This year the challenge was to take an expidition and make is more ecomonic, and cleaner so they are doing what they can. Just bad luck

Correction. Ford has the biggest R&D spending of any company in the entire world. Last year they spent 7700 million dollars on R&D, followed by Daimlerchrysler with 6446 million and then Siemens AG with 6178 million.

Cheers,

Andy

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I really don't know what to make of this. Airbags save more lives than they take, and although I do not know if airbags are mandated specifically, or if it is that they are the only technology which satisfies safety requirements for occupants. In either case, Ford and any other manufacturer would be remiss in not employing them considering their demonstrated efficacy.

Now the other side of the coin is that this boy lost a mother due to a product that MIGHT have been better engineered.

Perhaps we need some kind of tort reform that would also call for a relatively small insurance premium on business. That could be put into a pool, and those injured could petition this fund, and an arbiter decide the merits of the case, and the amount of reward to be given. There could be a limited appeal to this judgment as well, to ensure fairness.

 

[xochi]

Originally posted by: ReiAyanami
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/11/13/airbag.verdict.ap/index.html

i know an airbag deploys in milliseconds, but the impact of the airbag should not be like a car hitting your face

serves ford right since they're the ones that calculate the cost of safety vs the life of each customer, but then again most other car companies probably do the same tyler durden style.

I sure wish that the National tort reform was in place to limit Ford's damages to $250,000.

anything more would cripple Ford financially.

 

[kage69]

My first car was a Ford, and what a piece of crap it was. Twice it broke down and left me stranded miles away from anyone. I was always fixing it every other month it seemed. I won't even rent a Ford now. Who remembers that video on the news of a Ford dealership where people were running outside to extinguish a Ford minivan that just spontaneously ignited? (I think they said it had something to do with the starter)

Honda and Toyota all the way. My Honda has 88k on it and has never given me one one problem. Think I'm upgrading to an Acura next March.

Poor kid... I have no problem with Ford being crippled. Seeing as how they continue to design things that get people killed. If a company can't learn the lesson the first number of times, too bad. Survival of the fittest yo.

 

[Ferocious]

No need for tort reform.

I know conservatives don't like the jury system.......but I say let the people decide!

 

[desy]

That car is old enought that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration were the ones that mandated how fast Airbags had to come out not Ford
It was legislated! ALL airbags used to be unsafe at low collision because the Gov't had a minimum regulation of which ALL manufacturer's had to adhere
I hope Ford sues the gov't

 

[beyoku]

i thought airbags wouldnt be deployed under 25 mph?

 

[Lonyo]

guilty of a lack of due care or concern

Ford fitted an airbag that complied with the laws. The fact that the laws were negligent is not Fords fault.

 

[maluckey]

Agreed, and not only that, but chrysler for one, sent out memos to clients that owned cars with the original full-powed bags, explaining the dangers, and ways to minimize the risks. I'm sure Ford and Chevy did also. The news networks put out the word, and a quick internet search netted 1236 hits about air-bag safety, and the hazrds of the old style bags. Caveat Emptor and a dose of reality, would have allowed a suit versus the Federal govt., and capped the damages. Instead, they went after Ford and punished them for being a manufacturer of cars meeting the federal standards. Counterproductive, and stupid. The unwashed masses have spoken, and personal responsibility and following corporate mandates, prove to be of no worth.

 

[SuperTool]

Of course rightwingers want tort reform, so companies can sell dangerous products and not face responsibility when people are killed and injured.

 

[desy]

Life is dangerous
Accidental death used to be the number one cause of death.
The reason why its impossible to fly a small plane anymore was Piper/ Cessna et al got there arsses sued off when 50 year old aircraft started dropping out of the sky because of metal fatigue! They got taken to the cleaners in court , now finally they can build 'uncertified planes' to remove liability to 10 years instead of indefinately.
THAT is what is wrong , people assume that life has guaranteed safety, it does not.
Now when Pintos blow up and the manufacturer KNOWS this as fact and conceal it ,then go for it.
Frivilous litigation is killing productivety, if it wasn't for technological innovation spurring our economies we'd be screwed