Millions of vehicles have been recalled this week because of a defective airbag inflator which can cause an airbag to explode, sending shards of metal into drivers and passengers. At least four people have been killed in accidents involving the exploding Takata airbags, and hundreds more have been injured.
Motor vehicle manufacturers are issuing recalls of their vehicles that use the Takata airbag inflators, and affected vehicles include roughly 5 million BMW, Chrysler, Ford, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan and Toyota cars, trucks, and SUVs.
The recall does not necessarily include every vehicle using a Takata airbag inflator, and the NHTSA is receiving criticism and federal scrutiny for focusing the recall on high-humidity areas, such as Florida, where a woman was killed last month and police first suspected homicide because of the apparent "stab wounds" on her neck. Her death was later ruled consistent with injuries sustained from an exploding air bag.
The decision to focus the recall on states with high absolute humidity come from Toyota tests that indicated a higher rate of airbag failure in coastal states.
Oklahomans are among those perplexed at why the recall is currently limited to areas of high humidity. The state is not affected by the recall, despite the 2009 death of a teenage girl in a high school parking lot fender-bender.
Ashley Parham was 18 years old and had just graduated from Carl Albert High School four days earlier when she returned to the school to pick up her brother from spring football practice on May 27, 2009. Ashley was wearing a seatbelt, and she was not speeding when she got into a minor accident in the school parking lot. The airbag exploded, sending shards of metal into the teen's neck. Her brother watched helplessly as his older sister bled to death in minutes.
Parham's family sued Honda and the Takata Corporation, and the automaker recalled 2001 Honda Accords--the same vehicle Ashley was driving--to repair the airbag issue.
Still, despite one of the fatalities associated with the defective airbag inflator occurring in Oklahoma, the state is not one of the "high absolute humidity" states affected by the recall.
At least one auto manufacturer is saying that the issue will be resolved for anyone driving a vehicle with a Takata airbag, even if the driver's specific vehicle is not involved in the humidity-related recall. Toyota told Daily Finance, "People who live in areas that are outside of the recall zone who are afraid of driving their cars should contact their dealerships."
The executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, Clarence Ditlow, estimates that 20-25 million vehicles in the United States are equipped with the faulty airbags--significantly more than the 4.7 million vehicles in the "recall zone."
Click here to learn more about the Takata airbag recall.
