You were just in a serious car accident caused by another driver running a stop sign. The collision was severe enough that your airbags should have deployed, but they didn’t. Now you’re dealing with injuries that proper airbag deployment might have prevented or reduced, including a traumatic brain injury from your head hitting the steering wheel.
When airbags fail to deploy during accidents, you might have two separate legal claims: a standard car accident claim against the driver who caused the collision, and a product liability claim against the vehicle or airbag manufacturer for the defective safety system. Our friends at Marsh | Rickard | Bryan, LLC discuss how airbag failures continue despite decades of safety improvements and regulatory oversight. A product liability lawyer handling these cases understands that airbag failure claims require proving both that another driver caused the accident and that the airbag defect made your injuries worse than they would have been with proper deployment.
Understanding Airbag Deployment Standards
Airbags are designed to deploy in moderate to severe frontal or side impacts when sensors detect crash forces above certain thresholds. The system uses accelerometers and other sensors to determine impact severity and deploy bags within milliseconds when deployment criteria are met.
According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration standards, airbags must deploy in crashes meeting specific force thresholds. However, not every accident triggers deployment. Low-speed collisions, rear impacts, or glancing blows might not generate sufficient force to activate the system.
The question isn’t just whether your airbag deployed, but whether it should have deployed based on the type and severity of impact. Understanding deployment thresholds helps determine if the failure represents a defect or appropriate system operation.
When Non-Deployment Indicates A Defect
Several circumstances suggest airbag failure rather than appropriate non-deployment.
High-Speed Frontal Impacts
When vehicles collide head-on or nearly head-on at moderate to high speeds, airbags should deploy. If your car hit another vehicle directly at 30 mph or faster and airbags didn’t deploy, this strongly suggests a defect.
The crash forces in these scenarios clearly exceed deployment thresholds. Non-deployment means either sensors failed to detect the impact, the control module didn’t send deployment signals, or the airbag system itself malfunctioned.
Severe Vehicle Damage Without Deployment
When accidents cause extensive front-end damage, crumpled hoods, or destroyed bumpers but airbags remained inactive, the severity of structural damage indicates forces that should have triggered deployment.
Photos showing significant vehicle damage become important evidence that the impact met deployment criteria. The visible destruction demonstrates crash severity that contradicts claims the impact was too minor for deployment.
Other Safety Systems Activated
If seatbelt pretensioners activated during the crash, this proves the vehicle’s crash detection system recognized a deployment-level event. Pretensioners and airbags typically activate together based on the same sensor inputs. When pretensioners deploy but airbags don’t, this suggests airbag-specific failures rather than sensors not detecting the crash.
The Two Claims You Can Pursue
Airbag failure cases involve distinct legal theories against different defendants.
Standard Accident Claim Against The Other Driver
Your claim against the driver who caused the accident proceeds like any car accident case. You prove they were negligent, their negligence caused the collision, and you suffered damages. Their insurance should cover the injuries and damages they caused.
This claim compensates for all injuries resulting from the accident, including those that might have occurred even with proper airbag deployment. Whiplash, leg injuries, psychological trauma, and property damage all fall under this claim regardless of airbag function.
Product Liability Claim Against The Manufacturer
The separate product liability claim targets the vehicle manufacturer or airbag system manufacturer for selling defective safety equipment. This claim focuses on enhanced injuries or additional injuries you suffered because the airbag failed.
You must prove the airbag system was defective, the defect caused it not to deploy when it should have, and this failure caused additional injuries beyond what you would have suffered with proper deployment.
Types Of Airbag Defects
Product liability claims can proceed on different theories depending on what caused the failure.
Design Defects
Design defects exist when the airbag system’s design is inherently flawed. Perhaps sensors are positioned poorly, deployment thresholds are set too high, or the system architecture makes failures likely. These defects affect entire vehicle lines or model years.
Proving design defects often requires showing that alternative designs existed that would have been safer and practical. You need technical evidence demonstrating the design was unreasonably dangerous.
Manufacturing Defects
Manufacturing defects occur when individual airbag systems are built incorrectly despite proper design. Faulty wiring, improperly assembled components, or contaminated materials can cause specific units to fail while others function correctly.
These defects are harder to prove because you must show your specific vehicle had a manufacturing flaw rather than a widespread design problem. Inspection of the failed components becomes necessary.
Failure to Warn
Manufacturers must warn about known risks and proper use. If airbag systems have known limitations, deployment conditions, or maintenance requirements that weren’t adequately communicated to consumers, failure to warn claims might apply.
However, airbag operation is generally well understood, making failure to warn theories less common than design or manufacturing defect claims in airbag cases.
Recalls And Known Defects
Check whether your vehicle is subject to airbag-related recalls. The NHTSA maintains databases of vehicle recalls including airbag issues. If your vehicle model has a known airbag defect and was recalled but repairs weren’t completed, this strengthens your defect claim.
The Takata airbag recall affected millions of vehicles and demonstrated how widespread airbag defects can be. Other manufacturers have faced recalls for sensor problems, software issues, and mechanical failures. Awareness of recalls supports arguments that manufacturers knew about defects.
Preserving Evidence Of Airbag Failure
The vehicle itself is the most important evidence in airbag defect cases. Don’t allow the vehicle to be scrapped, repaired, or modified before your attorney examines it. The airbag system, control modules, sensors, and wiring all need inspection by qualified engineers.
Send immediate preservation letters to insurance companies, tow yards, and repair facilities demanding they maintain the vehicle in its post-crash condition. Once repairs begin or vehicles are destroyed, proving what caused airbag failure becomes nearly impossible.
Document the crash scene and vehicle damage thoroughly. Photograph impact points, vehicle deformation, deployed seatbelt pretensioners, and the non-deployed airbag areas. These images establish crash severity and system status.
Expert Analysis Requirements
Product liability claims require qualified experts to evaluate the airbag system and explain what failed. Automotive engineers, airbag system designers, or crash reconstruction specialists examine the vehicle and testify about defects.
These experts download data from the vehicle’s event data recorder, which captures information about the crash including speed, impact forces, seatbelt status, and whether deployment signals were sent. This data proves whether the system detected the crash and attempted deployment.
Destructive testing of airbag components might be necessary to identify manufacturing defects or design flaws. This testing requires proper procedures and documentation to withstand challenges about evidence handling.
How Enhanced Injury Claims Work
Your product liability claim focuses on enhanced injuries caused by airbag failure. These are injuries you wouldn’t have suffered or that would have been less severe if the airbag deployed properly.
Common Enhanced Injuries from Airbag Failure:
- Traumatic brain injuries from head striking steering wheel or dashboard
- Facial fractures and dental injuries
- Chest injuries from steering wheel impact
- Neck injuries more severe without airbag cushioning
- Upper extremity injuries from bracing against impact
Medical evidence must connect these specific injuries to airbag non-deployment. Biomechanical experts can testify about how airbag deployment would have prevented or reduced these injuries based on crash dynamics.
The challenge is separating injuries the at-fault driver caused from additional injuries the airbag defect caused. Both defendants will try to attribute all injuries to the other’s responsibility.
Comparative Damages Between Claims
When you pursue both claims, damages get allocated between the at-fault driver and the manufacturer based on their relative contribution to your total injuries.
The at-fault driver is responsible for all consequences of causing the accident. The manufacturer is only liable for additional harm from the defect. Your total damages might be $500,000, with $200,000 attributed to injuries that would have occurred regardless of airbag function and $300,000 to enhanced injuries from the airbag failure.
Juries or settlement negotiations must parse these damages, determining what portion each defendant owes. This process requires detailed medical analysis of which injuries resulted from which cause.
Settlement Coordination Issues
Settling with one defendant doesn’t automatically resolve claims against the other. You can settle your car accident claim with the at-fault driver while continuing to pursue the manufacturer, or vice versa.
However, settlement agreements typically include release language. Ensure that releases only cover the settling defendant and don’t inadvertently release other parties. Manufacturers sometimes attempt to condition settlements on releasing the at-fault driver or other parties.
The at-fault driver’s insurance company might contribute to your settlement even though they didn’t cause airbag failure, because your total damages stem partly from their insured’s negligence. Negotiating with multiple defendants and their insurers requires coordination to maximize total recovery without improper double recovery.
Statute Of Limitations Considerations
Product liability claims and negligence claims might have different statutes of limitations. Most states impose two to four year limitations periods for both, but the specific timeframes can vary.
The clock typically starts from the date of the accident for both claim types. However, some jurisdictions have discovery rules allowing product liability claims to begin when you discovered the defect rather than when the accident occurred.
Don’t assume both claims have identical deadlines. Missing the limitations period on the product liability claim while preserving only the accident claim costs you potentially significant recovery from the manufacturer.
Manufacturer Defense Strategies
Vehicle manufacturers employ well-funded defense teams for product liability cases. They’ll argue the crash didn’t meet deployment criteria, that the airbag system functioned as designed, or that your injuries would have been the same regardless of deployment.
They’ll bring their own engineers to dispute your experts’ conclusions. They’ll argue comparative fault, claiming you were driving unsafely or not wearing your seatbelt properly. They’ll scrutinize every aspect of the accident to find alternative explanations for airbag non-deployment.
Manufacturers also have data from testing and real-world crash analysis. They’ll use this data to argue that airbag deployment in your specific type of crash isn’t universal or necessary.
Why Both Claims Matter
Pursuing both the at-fault driver and the manufacturer increases total available compensation and provides backup if one claim fails. The driver’s insurance might have low policy limits insufficient to cover your damages. The manufacturer’s resources and insurance provide additional recovery sources.
If the driver successfully defends against liability or has inadequate coverage, your product liability claim can still provide substantial compensation. Conversely, if proving the airbag defect proves too difficult, your accident claim still recovers damages for injuries the collision caused.
Airbag failures during accidents create dual liability involving both the driver whose negligence caused the collision and the manufacturer whose defective product failed to protect you, requiring separate legal theories proving both that you were in an accident caused by someone else’s fault and that the airbag defect enhanced your injuries beyond what proper deployment would have prevented, with each claim demanding different types of evidence, expert analysis, and legal strategies while potentially providing compensation from multiple sources that together address the full extent of harm caused by both the accident and the safety system failure.