From everything we see in the newspapers and on TV, consumers could reasonably believe that American car owners have been most affected by the massive recall of Takata airbags. However, we live in a global consumer environment and as the recall continues to expand in the U.S., other countries are also beginning to take action.
As we have discussed before, airbags manufactured by Takata have a defect which causes them to deploy in a way which is injured or killed motorists in moderate to severe accidents. The mechanism of the defect can produce shrapnel like projectiles, putting drivers in grave danger. At least 13 people have been killed this way, including 10 people in the U.S.
Last month, Honda issued a recall of 784,000 vehicles in Japan. And in a companion recent development, the automaker, which has been most affected by the airbag crisis, announced it was recalling more than 1 million of its vehicles in China, International Business Times reports.
The Chinese Hondas were manufactured between 2005 and 2012. Of the 1,038,924 vehicles being recalled, more than 533,000 are CR-V crossovers, and another 456,000 are Civic sedans. There are no known injuries in China associated with Takata airbags, but Honda is taking no chances.
There is no guarantee that Honda is close to completing the identification of all of its vehicles with defective airbags. IBT predicts that up to 100 million Hondas will have to be recalled for airbag replacement before the danger is taken care of.
Based upon the time it will take to manufacture a sufficient number of replacement units, it could take 3 to 5 years to get rid of all of the dangerous airbags, during which time the public will remain in danger.
At the Walkup Melodia firm in San Francisco, attorneys who specialize in automobile product liability have undertaken representation of victims of the defective airbags. This is not an area for novices in the field of product liability. Victims seeking compensation from Takata or automakers need the help of a skilled product liability attorney.
