For those who drive a 2008 Hyundai Tiburon, or any vehicle with multiple airbags, there are some things you must know. While airbags are meant to protect you and your passengers in the event of a crash; ironically, many injuries occur from the deployment of an airbag, sometimes causing much more harm than good.
As an experienced auto accident attorney in Colorado Springs, Colorado, I’ve seen a number of accidents in which the airbag caused severe injury, even death. Other times, however, the airbags don’t deploy at all.
In older vehicles, airbags would often deploy too forcefully, injuring small adults or children in the front seat. As technology around driver and passenger safety has advanced, however, it is now the sensors that control airbags that are the newest cause of airbag failure.
Sensors have been cited as the cause of airbags deploying when they’re not supposed to; for example, deploying when a driver lightly bumps a wall while parking or worse, when a car is driving on a highway.
A recent case that discusses airbag failure is highlighted in an article for LawyerAndSettlements.com. The article discusses a case in Virginia that left a sixteen-year-old with head injuries.
The Duncan family was driving a 2008 Hyundai Tiburon with a passenger. The car left the road and went down an embankment, eventually hitting a tree. The passenger was not injured, but the sixteen-year-old driver experienced trauma to the head when the airbag failed to deploy.
The Duncan family, in their defective airbag lawsuit, argued that proper deployment of the side airbag could have prevented their son from hitting his head against the roof rail. The teenager was in a coma for a week after he suffered traumatic brain injury from the accident.
The family was awarded $14 million in the airbag injury lawsuit.
If you have questions about this case or believe you have suffered an injury due to the failure of an airbag, contact an experienced Colorado auto accident attorney for guidance.
