The government of Japan has ordered vehicles equipped with Takata airbags to be recalled due to a potential defect. The recall request came after the driver of a Honda subcompact vehicle in Malaysia was impaled with metal shards when her airbag exploded.
There have been other dangerous airbag accidents unrelated to Takata which show that car manufacturers need to develop a technology to replace airbags. Airbag accidents have at times proven to be as dangerous as automobile collisions. I’m not saying that airbags are unsafe, but they aren’t perfect either.
5 deaths have been linked to the Takata airbag issue.
‘If there is a nationwide recall in the U.S., we’ve directed Takata to take the same measure in Japan,’ According to Akiro Ohta, the transportation minister of Japan. ‘There is a risk that trust in Japanese carmakers could weaken, so the problem must be resolved as quickly as possible.’
Source: The New York Times.
As for General Motors (GM), they have recalled 316,000 vehicles (both sedans and SUVs) for a potential headlamp driver module defect. It may cause affected vehicles’ low-beam headlamps and Daytime running lights (DRL) to operate intermittently or malfunction, but the rest of the lamps (including the high beams) shouldn’t be affected.
According to Brittany Hillen of Slashgear:
The recalled vehicles are all older models, and cover the 2006 TrailBlazer EXT and Envoy XL, the 2006 through 2009 Buick LaCrosse, 2006 to 2008 Saab 9-7X, 2006 to 2008 Isuzu Ascender, 2006 and 2007 Buick Rainier, and 2006/2007 Chevrolet TrailBlazers and GMC Envoys.
Greg Garder of Detroit Free Press said that GM has not yet linked the defect to any accidents. He also pointed out that GM has issued 79 recalls this year, totalling 30.4 million vehicles worldwide, and 26.8 million in the U.S.
There have been many recalls from automobile manufacturers. This indicates that the industry has a serious quality control problem. I don’t know what caused it, but I hope they can resolve it soon.
Source: Detroit Free Press.
