Houston Injury and Accident Lawyer & Attorney : Vujasinovic & Beckcom Law Firm : Workplace Injuries, Car Accidents, Insurance Claims : Harris County, Texas

According to the New York Times, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received 22 complains from people driving Chrysler Jeep Liberty vehicles.

According to the reports, the upper ball joint has been separating on one of either front wheel.

The problem is serious.  It can lead to a disabled vehicle or loss of control. 

Chrysler itself has received 74 complains involving more than 300,000 2002 and 2003 models. 

If you are experiencing problems with your vehicle, REPORT THEM TO THE National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the vehicle manufacturer.  It is critically important that owners of vehicles self-report vehicle problems so the manufacturers will be aware of any defect issues with their vehicles.

You can read the full story by clicking  on the link below:

Government upgrades defect investigation

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While driving his 1997 Nissan Pathfinder, Michael Guillory was hit by a vehicle that failed to stop at a stop sign.

Although he states he was properly wearing his seatbelt, Guillory believes he was injured because the Pathfinder failed to protect him and the seatbelt unlatched and failed to restrain him.

Guillory filed a product liability suit against Nissan on March 10 in the Marshall Division of the Eastern District of Texas.

The lawsuit states that another vehicle, driven by Jeffrey Moon, disregarded a stop sign and crashed into Guillory's vehicle. The plaintiff says his injuries are a result of the Nissan being "not reasonably crashworthy, and not reasonably fit for unintended, but clearly foreseeable, accidents."

Teaching Point

There is a legal doctrine called the doctrine of "crashworthiness."  That means that cars and trucks are supposed to be designed to protect the people inside in foreseeable crashes.

All too often, however, seatbelts fail, roofs crush in, cars roll over, tires fail, vehicles catch on fire, peole are ejected, etc.  None of these events should occur in a foreseeable vehicle crash.

You can also read more about defective products cases by visiting www.vbattorneys.com.

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A Houston man was left with permanent brain damage when he was involved in an accident with a car on the 610 West Loop, and his driver’s side airbag failed to deploy.  His brain damage was caused when his head slammed against his car’s steering wheel, which would not have happened had his airbag functioned as expected.

There have been dozens of other cases in the Houston area where airbags have failed to deploy in a crash.  This has prompted lawsuits and investigations into why airbags fail to deploy in some accidents.

A review of recall statistics at Safecar.gov reveals that since airbags were first implemented in passenger vehicles, there have been over 700 recalls due to airbag or airbag component failures.  What is causing all these recalls?

Manufactures claim that airbags are governed by complicated, highly scientific sensors that are programmed to determine exactly when an airbag should and should not deploy.  According to vehicle manufacturers, it may seem as though an airbag should have deployed, but if the accident was a side-impact crash instead of a full head-on crash, the airbag would have been prevented from deploying in order to protect the driver from being injured by the bag.

Of course this is little consolation to the gentleman who was left with permanent brain damage after his head-on collision, and countless others like him.  If you suspect that your airbag should have deployed but did not, the NHTSA wants to hear from you.  You can contact them at 1-888-327-4236 or go to www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/ivoq to file a complaint.

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