Senator says Takata airbags are ‘ticking time bomb’

Filed under:

Air Bag Recall

"This is a problem that shows deep and wide issues in their quality-control process." – Sean Kane

Exploding airbags that spray lethal amounts of shrapnel at unsuspecting drivers are "ticking time bombs" that potentially threaten millions of American motorists, a leading US Senator said Thursday.

Although automakers have issued at least two dozen recalls to address problems with the defective airbags made by global automotive supplier Takata, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said the company and a federal regulatory agency haven’t moved fast enough to address the problem.

"Every single one of these Takata airbags could be a ticking time bomb," he said during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing.

In a hearing that bore much resemblance to ones earlier this year that probed a General Motors ignition-switch defect, lawmakers Thursday pressed a top Takata executive, the deputy administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and others for answers on why it took so long for them to respond to a fatal problem.

At least four people have been killed by the exploding airbags, and several others have been injured. NHTSA closed a probe into the problem in 2009 without taking action.

Continue reading Senator says Takata airbags are ‘ticking time bomb’

Senator says Takata airbags are ‘ticking time bomb’ originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 20 Nov 2014 19:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

from Autoblog http://ift.tt/1r2aNoB
via IFTTT