Local leaders have formed a coalition to inform residents of a defect in an airbag system that has killed 11 drivers nationwide and three in California, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Leaders met in Westminster on March 28 to discuss the recall of Takata airbag inflators, which 19 automakers have installed in their vehicles.
The coalition, called Airbagrecall:southerncalifornia, will urge citizens to do a safety check on their vehicles to determine if they are at risk. Residents can visit airbagrecall.com and enter their VIN or license plate number. Within minutes, they can determine whether their vehicle is carrying the defective airbag system. If a vehicle is carrying such a system, and 1 million in Southern California are, residents can then schedule free, life-saving repairs at a local dealer.
Southern California is one of the country’s higher-risk areas for serious injury or death due to defective airbag inflators and leads the nation in fatalities linked to the recall, according to the Department of Transportation. That is, in part, because there are so many vehicles on the road (certain 2001-2003 Hondas and Acuras contain defective airbags that pose up to a 50 percent chance of exploding like a grenade upon deployment, even in a minor fender bender). The warm climate in Southern California also triggers deployment; the defect is in a chemical inside a metal canister in the airbag systems.
Nearly 70 million defective airbag inflators, in approximately 42 million vehicles, are or could be under recall in the United States by 2020 due to a dangerous defect that causes the chemical propellant in the inflator to degrade over time, making it more explosive and increasing the potential for shrapnel to spray toward the head and neck of the vehicle’s occupants upon deployment.
The most recent fatality in Southern California connected to the defective airbag inflators was in Riverside in September, 2016, according to authorities.
Among those leading the meeting were Westminster Mayor Tri Ta and Mark Lauderback, a commander with the Westminster Police Department.
This article appeared in the April 5, 2017 print edition of the News Enterprise.