Los Angeles Seat Belt Lawyers
Seat Belt Attorney California
INTRODUCTION USE of SEAT BELT and RESTRAINT SYSTEMS
Over the past thirty years, there have been major public safety
campaigns encouraging automobile drivers and passengers to "buckle
up" for safety. What the motoring public has not been told is
that "buckling up" may not at all ensure the safety the restraint
system was theorized to provide. Moreover, both the manufacturers
of these seat belt system components and the major U.S. automakers
installing them have known for at least three decades that these
buckle systems were designed to be simple, cheap, and (as a result)
particularly vulnerable to unlatching during accidents.
WHY SEAT BELTS SAVE LIVES
The primary reason the seat belt saves lives has to do with the
physics of mechanical forces produced during an accident. Sir
Isaac Newton's first law states that an object in motion will
tend to stay in motion. This is true of the human body as well
as objects. Once a body and an automobile are both moving together
at highway speeds, for example, of 55 miles per hour, a collision
causing a sudden deceleration ahead in the vehicle will not immediately
affect the continued motion of the human occupant inside, whose
body will continue in the same direction at the same speed as
it had been immediately prior to the accident. This means that,
unless restrained, the human occupant will continue at 55 miles
per hour into the steering wheel, dashboard, windshield or (if
in the rear seat) into the seat back of the front seat or through
the windshield (if no seat back is directly in front).
The injury potential during an accident rises dramatically once
the occupant leaves his or her seat. And becomes ejected from
the vehicle. For the driver, whose continued ability to control
the vehicle may prevent further damage or injuries, becoming suddenly
unrestrained prevents him or her from being able to maintain control
over the vehicle, adding further injury potential to the accident
sequence.
A secured lap belt prevents the occupant from leaving the seat,
greatly reducing (but not eliminating) the potential for fatal
and/or severe injuries. BACK
TO TOP
HISTORY OF SEAT BELTS IN THE U.S.
While early stage coaches sported straps to restrain the driver
and passengers, modern seat belt usage developed primarily with
the progress of miliary and civilian aviation. The higher speeds
and greater G-forces imparted to aircraft occupants made restraints
essential to ensure continued control over the aircraft and to
minimize injuries arising from an accident. As early as World
War I seat belts were installed in military aircraft to make sure
combat pilot would remain in his seat during aerial maneuvers.
The use of seat belts in automobiles, however, did not begin
in earnest until the mid to late 1950's. Even then, seat belts
were considered optional equipment. In 1955, famous actor James
Dean died in a spectacular two-vehicle crash in the Southern California
desert, which he likely would have survived had he been wearing
a seat belt. Probably more so than any other incident, the Dean
crash launched a new period of public awareness about seat belt
utilization in automobiles and their possible advantages. In 1955,
Swedish automaker Volvo was the first manufacturer to offer seat
belt systems as standard equipment in its automobiles on a safety
first theme. Volvo backed up its claims with a substantial amount
of crash testing it independently performed during the 1950's
which provided inescapable proof that use of a seat belt during
an automobile accident would reduce both fatalities and serious
injuries.
Although heightened public awareness about seat belt safety in
the United States prompted some American automakers to offer seat
belts as optional equipment in their vehicle lines, few customers
ordered seat belts and they were never made standard equipment
in American cars until the mid 1960's.
In 1963, recognizing a mounting number casualties on the public
roads and highways avoidable through seat belt usage, Congress
for the first time ordered that minimum federal standards be adopted
for safety belts "so that passenger injuries in motor vehicle
accidents can be kept to a minimum." (77 Stats. 361) One year
later, the U.S. Commerce Department proposed and adopted a variety
of regulations governing seat belt adoption, usage and testing
which were largely adopted from standards which had previously
been issued by the Society of Automotive Engineers ("SAE") (29
F.R. 12736, 16973).
These new regulations, posted at 15 C.F.R.. § 7, et seq. set
forth a host of minimum requirements for manufacturers to follow
governing the strengths and tolerances of seat belts, buckles,
retractors and other restraint system components. In 1966, Congress
passed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which
formally established Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards ("FMVSS")
providing minimum legally acceptable requirements for the manufacturing
of vehicular components, including seat belts and seat belt buckles.
This legislation also made the installation of seat belts mandatory
by U.S. automakers.
In the late 1960's, heightened public safety concerns over the
potential for a lap belt alone to produce serious lower extremity
and abdominal injuries during an accident (although perhaps preventing
fatal injuries) prompted more regulatory changes to require the
use of lap and shoulder belt systems. These integrated restraints
are theoretically designed to distribute the accident-retraining
forces of the belt system along the body rather than focusing
them solely along the pelvis, raising the potential for abdominal
injuries caused by the lap belt alone.
In the late 1970's, in an effort to compel a higher degree of
public use of seat belt systems, the Federal Government required
automakers to install automatic restraint systems, which involved
the use of shoulder harnesses on rails and slots which would automatically
slide into place when the occupant started the vehicle. However,
these mechanically complicated systems were prone to substantial
problems, and involved a manually-attached lap belt which many
users failed to employ under the mistaken belief that they were
automatically and fully restrained. When these occupants were
involved in accidents in which their automatic shoulder harness
alone was in place, they were subjected to more serious injuries
than they likely would have suffered had they been wearing only
a lap belt. As a result, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
("NHTSA") enacted regulations requiring placards to be placed
on the automatic shoulder harness systems warning that they are
not to be used without the lap belt. Due to these problems, the
U.S. automakers manufacturers were permitted discontinue manufacture
of these automatic shoulder restraint systems.
During the mid-1980's, while the automatic restraint systems
were being troubleshot in production, crash research was leading
to the conclusion that an inflatable air bag could supplement
vehicle occupant protection in an accident is used as a supplement
to seat belts and shoulder harnesses. Inclusion of these systems
in new vehicles began to become mandatory in certain passenger
vehicles the early 1990's and are being gradually phased in into
other types of vehicles. Air bags, of course, also pose their
own risks. Recent concern has arisen over the potential for air
bags, during deployment, to cause serious life threatening injuries
to certain occupants, such as small children and frail adults,
during sudden air bags inflation. Nonetheless, air bags have greatly
reduced the number of fatal and serious auto injuries in vehicular
accidents, particularly in highway accidents involving greater
speeds. BACK TO TOP
SEAT BELT BUCKLE EVOLUTION
The object of a seat belt buckle is to bring two ends of the
seat belt together in a junction which will keep the two ends
of the belt securely fastened to one another, particularly during
the sudden and severe loads imposed during an accident - yet be
easy for the occupant to fasten and unfasten in entering and existing
the vehicle.
The first seat belt to be mass-produced for this purpose in American
vehicles in the 1950's and early 1960's closely resembled the
type of widely-recognized seat belt buckle still in use on Airliners
today, called a "lift-cover" buckle. The restraint system would
have a male tongue at one end with a hole or aperture in it, and
would be inserted into the female buckle where a spring-loaded
latch pin (called a pawl) would pass into the pawl and hold the
tongue firmly into the buckle. The pin would be extracted when
the user lifted up the hinged, spring-loaded buckle cover, releasing
the pawl from the aperture in the tongue, allowing the tongue
and buckle once again to separate.
Early after installation of these buckles, concern arose that
the lift-cover could be accidentally dislodged by the occupant's
motions inside the vehicle, leaving the user unrestrained in an
accident.
In 1965, General Motors Corporation employee, Robert C. Fisher
designed a buckle which operated similarly as the lift-cover buckle,
but substituted a protected button on the side of the buckle for
the lift-cover. This was the first major "side-release" or "top-release"
style buckle used on American vehicles. The spring-loaded button
would cause the pawl to span into the aperture when the tongue
was fully inserted all of the way into the buckle. When the occupant
wanted to disengage the tongue and buckle, (s)he would press the
button and the pawl with be pushed out of the tongue's aperture,
permitting separation of the tongue and buckle. The first of Fisher's
designs was patented in 1965, and was called the RCF-65 ("RCF"
standing for Robert C. Fisher) or "Maxi-Buckle."
In 1967, Fisher patented a smaller side-release buckle which
operated identically to the RCF-65, which differed from the "Maxi-Buckle"
only in respect to its miniaturization. This buckle became known
as the "RCF-67" side-release buckle (also known as the Type I
buckle in General Motors Vehicles). It remains the most numerous
buckle installed in American vehicles to date. At the time of
its initial conception, the RCF-67 was lightweight, simple in
design, easy to manufacture, had few moving parts, was fairly
durable, and therefore was relatively inexpensive to manufacture.
It therefore became immediately popular with American automakers
whom the government involuntarily compelled to make seat belts
mandatory equipment in U.S. cars beginning in 1968.
In the early 1980's the American automakers and their buckle
suppliers began a campaign to develop a set belt buckle with a
tongue eject feature and a release push button on the end of the
buckle, rather than on the side or top.
The initial generation of these tongue-eject feature buckles
were side-release buckles. The first of these tongue-eject buckles
used in production was manufactured by Hamill, a Division of Firestone
(now TRW Vehicle Safety Systems) and was used as early as 1973
and 1974 Ford vehicles. Called a "diecast" buckle, the buckle
looked remarkably similar to the RCF-67, but was made by Hamill
pursuant to a Swiss patent which announced as its sole purpose,
prevention of the danger of "false latching." This is discussed
in further detail below. After two years, Ford went back to the
RCF-67 solely to save money on the production costs of the buckle.
However, in the early 1980's both Ford and General Motors once
again directed their buckle suppliers to develop a new end-release
buckle with a tongue eject feature. In the late 1980's the Ford
Taurus and Lincoln Sable utilized side-release buckles with tongue
eject features, as did the Ford Probe. At the same time, TRW VSSI
(which had purchased Hammill from Firestone several years earlier)
developed a buckle with a German Company called REPA, which was
the first of the major "end-release" tongue-eject feature buckles
ultimately to be developed for use in the United States.
The REPA end-release buckle had the release button placed on
the end of the buckle (next to the insertion point of the tongue),
instead of on the top or side of the buckle. The tongue-eject
feature prevented false latching, while locating he release button
on the end of the buckle prevented a side-load from inadvertently
causing the release button to be activated, thus also preventing
inertial unlatching, as discussed below.
TRW VSSI and Allied Signal both developed end-release buckles
for use in Ford and GM vehicles in the late 1980s. Today, the
end-release buckles is the predominant buckle sold in the United
States, and the number of new vehicles being equipped with RCF-67
buckles continues to diminish. BACK
TO TOP
OUTDATED BUCKLE TECHNOLOGY ARE RESULTING
IN SAFETY DEFECTS
Despite numerous advances in passive restraint systems over the
past two decades, surprisingly the FMVSS and industry standards
governing the manufacture of seat belts and buckles have essentially
remained the same to date. Moreover, little effort has been made
by the American automakers to improve the designs for seat belt
buckles used in American automobiles during that time period.
The government's watchdog agency, NHTSA, further has not only
done little to improve these designs, but has actively resisted
proposed changes which would make these buckles safer. Meanwhile,
advanced technologies available which would dramatically improve
the safety of these buckle systems have been largely ignored.
As a result, despite the recent trend toward equipping all passenger
vehicles sold in the United States with end-release buckles, there
remain literally billions of RCF-67/Type I buckles in U.S. vehicles
still on the road today. As explained in the above section, these
buckles represent an outdated buckle-latching technology designed
in the 1960's, and continue to possess serious defects of which
most Americans are largely unaware (e.g. false and inertial unlatching),
until a serious accident occurs.
As a direct consequence, over the past twenty-five years, thousands
of Americans who made a conscious effort to put their seat belts
on have been killed or seriously injured during auto accidents
when their seat belt buckles have become suddenly unlatched. More
disturbingly, evidence obtained by attorneys representing these
injured persons reveals that the auto industry has been well aware
of these buckle unlatching-related casualties, and have suppressed
them from the public and the U.S. Government in order to avoid
the massive expense of forced recalls and to save money on the
manufacturing costs of their vehicles.
These buckle unlatching defects generally fall into two categories:
false latching and inertial unlatching. BACK
TO TOP
FALSE LATCHING
The first major flaw in the RCF-65, 67/Type I buckle arises from
the very design of the buckle itself. The user may, upon some
occasions, insert the tongue into the buckle until enough resistence
is encountered to lead him or her to believe the buckle is fully
engaged, when in fact it is not. The RCF-65 and 67 have no spring
or other eject feature built into the buckle to spit the tongue
out if it was not fully engaged. The belt occupant in such circumstance
is therefore led to believe that the buckle is engaged when it
actually is not. If an accident occurs when the buckle is so configured,
the sudden load forces cause the tongue to come out of the buckle
and leave the occupant suddenly and unexpectedly unrestrained.
This condition, known as "false latching," has been a known drawback
of the RCF-65 and -67 since its inception. As early as August
31, 1966 (prior to passage of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle
Safety Act of 1966) the National Bureau of Standards modified
certain regulations governing seat belt buckles so as to include
"additional requirements for buckles [which] are included to reduce
the probability of false latching."
As early as 1970, the European community adopted regulations
which prohibited the use of buckles in Europe in which false latching
was possible. By 1974, the RCF-67 was illegal in Europe because
it as known to permit false latching.
The U.S. automakers have long been aware that the RCF-67/Type
I side-release buckle poses a significant danger of false latching
inherent in the buckle. They have not only failed to address the
problem, but have suppressed it. And the problem of false latching
is not an insignificant one.
During the period from 1967 through 1968, in Crash and Sled
testing, Ford Engineer Peter Bertleson, Manager of Impact Dynamics
at Ford, supervised approximately 500 crash tests involving test
dummies, of which approximately 50 percent involved RCF-67/Type
I side-release buckles. Of these tests, Ford knew at the time
that approximately 15 percent of the dummies were left unrestrained
at the conclusion of the test. Ford concluded that at least ½
of these resulted from Ford's own test technicians falsely latching
the dummies into their buckles prior to initiation of the test.
Independent of false latching occurrences actually taking place
during crash testing, Ford and G.M. had conducted a 1967 joint
study which concluded that a new type of buckle incorporating
a tongue eject feature was necessary to prevent false latching.
As early as the early 1970's Ford developed General Product
Acceptance Specifications which mandated that a seat belt buckle
"be designed so as to prevent false latching." Nonetheless, Ford
continued to use the RCF-67 which Ford knew was susceptible to
false latching.
In 1973 and 1974, Hammill, a Division of Firestone, began manufacturing
a "diecast" buckle. The "diecast" buckle looked remarkably similar
to the RCF-67, but was made by Hamill pursuant to a Swiss patent
which announced as its sole purpose, prevention of the danger
of "false latching." After two years of production and installation
of the buckle into Ford vehicles, Ford and Hammill abandoned the
buckle to conserve manufacturing costs on a more "difficult"buckle
to produce. Ford reverted the false-latching prone RCF-67.
Just a few years later, a false latch was actually captured on
videotape, once again during barrier crash testing being performed
by Ford. In 1978, Ford performed a Crash Test Ford numbered 3888,
a barrier impact test the purpose of which was to determine fuel
system integrity. The buckle used for the dummies in the test
was an RCF-67/Type buckle. The videotape clearly showed that at
the time of impact, the crash test dummy occupying the front left
passenger seat suddenly came unrestrained as its seat belt came
flying off. The dummy proceeded into and shattered the vehicle's
windshield. A human being in its place would have been killed
instantly.
Ford's employees and experts in previous lawsuits have since
admitted that Ford's own specially-trained engineers themselves
once again "falsely latched" the right front seat passenger into
the right seat of the pick-up truck used for Crash Test 3888.
In fact, the principal Engineer on Crash Test 3888 himself admitted
in a deposition that the dummy had been buckled into the vehicle
in a prep garage one-half mile from the test building, hoisted
onto a tow truck, towed over poorly paved ground with potholes
and cracks, jacked down from the truck and placed onto the test
track and then accelerated into the barrier, and at no time prior
to the initial impact did the falsely-latched buckle ever unlatch.
In spite of these developments, Ford did not begin phasing out
the RCF-67 until the mid 1990's, except for a few new car lines
developed in the mid to late 1980's, which were designed to be
equipped from the start with specially-designed side-release buckles
possessing tongue eject features. These included the Ford Probe,
Taurus and Mercury Sable.
At the same time, Ford and GM were aware that an increasing
number of inadvertent unlatching customer complaints and lawsuits
were being filed arising from accidents involving RCF-67 buckles.Ford's
response to these incidents was essentially to conceal them from
the public altogether, while secretly replacing RCF-67 buckles
with the new end-release buckles now being supplied to Ford by
bucklemakers TRW VSSI and Allied Signal. BACK
TO TOP
INERTIAL UNLATCHING
The second problem with the RCF-65, 67/Type I is its susceptibility
to become unlatched (even when previously fully latched) when
a side-load is suddenly applied to the back of the belt buckle
(such as during a side-impact collision or sudden rollover of
the vehicle). Under these circumstances, the body of the buckle
suddenly moves opposite the direction of the button, but the inertial
forces acting on the button cause it to remain relatively at station
and in place. This effectively causes the release button to move
toward the unlatch position, thus releasing the occupant suddenly
and unexpectedly. Because the release occurs as a result of the
inertial forces acting on the button, this type of inadvertent
unlatching is called "inertial unlatching."
Inertial unlatching can easily be demonstrated using an RCF 67
buckle, tongue and belt by fully latching, and than pulling on
each end while slapping the back of the buckle firmly against
a solid surface. The tongue will instantaneously separate from
the buckle. Unlike false unlatching, which the buckle and automakers
conceded long ago is an inherent characteristic of the RCF-67/Type
I buckle, they have steadfastly declared inertial unlatching to
be impossible in real world conditions.
Major attention to inertial unlatching arose in 1992 when a
syndicated CBS program, "Street Stories" broadcast a segment focusing
on several lawsuits which alleged that motorists and passengers
(or their heirs) who had been wearing their RCF-67/Type I seat
belt buckles became suddenly unlatching in accidents involving
dynamic side-impact forces and were ejected from their vehicles
and killer and/or serious injured. Shortly after the program aired,
a petition was filed with NHTSA by a coalition of consumer groups
to begin rulemaking proceedings to investigate "inertial unlatching"
to enact regulations preventing buckles susceptible to false latching
from being released to the public.
The reaction by the automakers and buckle vendors was vehement
denial that inertial unlatching could occur and vigorous opposition
to the petition. When asked to supply statistics concerning accident
claims and lawsuits arising from possible inertial unlatch incidents,
the auto industry reported that few if any claims or suits had
been filed implicating inertial unlatching, and that the problem
was essentially nonexistent.
G.M. claimed that it had commissioned independent research from
an accident analysis laboratory in Arizona which proved that the
inertial forces required to achieve an inertial unlatch in an
accident were so severe as to be impossible in all but the most
severe accidents (where the impact forces were so severe that
even a properly-belted occupant could not be expected to survive).
In November, 1992, even before the industry's written responses
were received and fully considered, NHTSA denied the petition
on the basis that no evidence suggested inertial unlatching was
actually a problem in real world conditions.
Nonetheless, since 1992, hundreds of lawsuits have been filed
against the major automakers citing inertial unlatching as the
cause of deaths and serious injuries to occupants of RCF-67 and
Type I-equipped vehicles. BACK
TO TOP
THE BUCKLE UNLATCHING COVER-UP and DECEIT
of the U.S. GOVERNMENT
During their representation of buckle unlatching victims and
their families, BISNAR & CHASE
has gathered hundreds of thousands of documents and taken scores
of depositions of industry personnel which has revealed that Ford
and GM were well aware that false latching and inertial unlatching
were leading to hundreds if not thousands of deaths and serious
injuries which the auto industry has been suppressing from the
public for years.
BISNAR & CHASE
discovered that Ford and TRW VSSI misrepresented the actual numbers
of buckle unlatching claims they were aware of to the U.S. Government
in their written responses to the 1992 NHTSA rulemaking petition.
Specifically, Ford represented to NHTSA that it knew of only 56
responsive claims or incidents involving such unlatching. In truth,
however, at that time Ford had 1,406 such claims files in its
possession in its Office of General Counsel the contents of which
it refused to disclose, citing attorney client privilege. Additional
records obtained in litigation by BISNAR
& CHASE revealed that Ford had found
an additional 3,100 claims of inadvertent unlatching made through
its dealers and customer service departments.
None of these 4,506 claims, incidents, accidents and lawsuits
were reported to NHTSA. In a recent buckle unlatching trial against
Ford, Ford's senior management personnel finally admitted under
oath that they had under reported the actual number of claims
of known buckle unlatching in 1992 to NHTSA in response to the
rulemaking petition.
GM's conduct appears to have been even more egregious. In its
response to the 1992 NHTSA rulemaking petition, GM enclosed test
research which claimed that actual laboratory testing it commissioned
had proven that inertial unlatching was a practical impossibility.
NHTSA relied heavily on these representations by GM in denying
the rulemaking petition. For years, attorneys handling unlatching
cases have been trying unsuccessfully to secure allegedly privileged
secret documents and testimony from the very laboratory used by
GM to determine the truthfulness of the laboratory's testing and
conclusions relied upon by the auto industry. In every instance,
GM successfully argued that such research was "privileged" and
not subject to disclosure.
Recently, however, after years of litigation, motions and appeals,
BISNAR & CHASE
in conjunction with several other law firms throughout the nation,
have been given the green light by court order to demand production
by the test laboratory of these test documents and to take the
depositions of these key laboratory test personnel. Initial information
produced pursuant to the Court's order has so far reveal that
the test laboratory likely falsified and suppressed its initial
research which did in fact reveal that the forces necessary to
produce inertial unlatching was possible in real world accidents.
As a result of these disclosures, BISNAR
& CHASE expects that its future buckle
unlatching clients may be able to expect larger settlements and
higher punitive damages awards at trial on their claims. BACK
TO TOP
USE of DEFECTIVE BUCKLES to SAVE MONEY
JUSTIFIES PUNITIVE DAMAGES
In a recent BISNAR & CHASE
false latching lawsuit against a Large U.S. Automaker, BISNAR
& CHASE was able to secure internal
documents which proved that the Company had intentionally retrofitted
the RCF-67 false-latching-prone buckle back into one of its leading
Sport Utility Vehicles in 1990 in place of the false-latching-proof
end-release buckle the SUV was designed to have had installed
from the outset of production. In these highly confidential documents,
the automaker admitted it took this action because its cost accountants
determined that they could save $ 1.90 per vehicle.
Other documents obtained in the same case established that the
same automaker did the same in a number of its other vehicle lines
for the same reasons.
As a result of BISNAR & CHASE's
obtaining this information, the case settled for a substantial
sum which was agreed by the parties to be kept confidential. However,
BISNAR & CHASE
has also taken action in conjunction with consumer safety groups
to share its discoveries in order to petition NHTSA to revisit
its 1992 rulemaking and enact appropriate regulatory measures,
including product recalls, to curtain the usage of the false latching
and inertial-latching-prone RCF-67/Type I buckles. BACK
TO TOP
ADDITIONAL RESTRAINTS SYSTEMS HAZARDS
Installation Points
The location for the shoulder harness in U.S. Vehicles has also
proven problematic. Depending upon the size of the occupant, location
of the restraint anchorage for the shoulder belt can induce serious
injuries to the occupant whose torso size is not optimally restrained
by the shoulder harness.
Despite the relatively low additional costs involved, the automakers
have been slow to correct these problems, and only certain newer
lines and luxury models currently offer adjustable shoulder belt
anchorages. This permits the shoulder belt to be positioned in
a more favorable and safe relationship to the upper torso, such
as across the chest rather than across the neck, which ensures
adequate protection in a crash.
Retractor Failure
When an accident occurs, the retractor is designed to lock the
payout of the shoulder belt to prevent the torso from continuing
forward into the dashboard or steering wheel.
BISNAR & CHASE
have discovered a number of automakers' buckle designs which,
through design and/or manufacturing defects, permit the shoulder
belt to pay out excessively, resulting is severe injury-producing
potential.
A pre-tensioning device has been perfected which tightens the
belt around the occupant as a crash sequence begins. This has
proven an effective fix to this problem. Once again, however,
the automakers offer this live-saving technology on only a few,
luxury models of their vehicles.
Air Bags Failures
Even though they have greatly reduced the potential for life-threatening
injuries associated with buckle failure and ejection, air bagss
have proven to produce crushing forces fatal to small or fail
vehicle occupants and small children. While the industry claims
to be taking steps to address these problems, it is unclear that
they have adequately warned the American public of the genuine
dangers associated with sudden air bags deployment. BACK
TO TOP
CONCLUSION
A "safety" belt unfortunately ensures nothing of the kind. A
lax attitude by NHTSA toward genuine public safety and ineffective
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards have led to scores of deaths
and serious injuries arising directly from defective and unsafe
seat belt and restraints systems which most Americans have ironically
come to believe save lives in accidents. Disclosure of the full
extent of the safety threat has further been hampered by the auto
industry's suppression and misrepresentation of true accident
statistics and, in at least one major instance, outright falsification
of test research.
As a result, the multitude of vehicle on American roads remain
equipped with unsafe and defectively designed restraints systems
and components.
Given the total failure of federal regulators to address these
urgent issues, it will remain the province of attorneys such as
BISNAR & CHASE
to achieve genuine safety reform through the tort system, by continuing
to mount economic pressure on irresponsible automakers. In this
way, it is hoped over time that Americans will again be able to
restore their trust in the precept that "safety" belts are appropriately
so named. BACK TO TOP |
