Defective Car Injuries: Product Liability for Car Makers

Some car accidents were not caused by driver error.  Sometimes one of the automobiles had a critical defect, one that made an accident hard to envision and even harder to avoid.  In these relatively rare (but still all-too-common) situations, ultimately a manufacturer is at fault, and it becomes both a personal injury case and a product liability case.

Injuries resulting from defective cars tend to be devastating partly because safety expectations are so high.  A roadworthy car performs with almost miraculous consistency.  Yet defects still happen and still can cause accidents for a variety of reasons, including that:

• Even the simplest car has thousands of components, many of which are part of a critical system (e.g. transmission, braking, etc.), and any of which can be made with defects.
• Evolving safety standards, regulations, consumer demand, and competitive interests push car manufacturers to make changes constantly, year after year.  Not all of those changes work out as planned.
• Cars have become more computerized and more complex.  In addition to mechanical failures, electronic or programmatic failures can also lead to accidents.
• Sometimes carmakers cut corners or have quality-control issues.  The same can be true of third-party manufacturers of specific components.

In general, a catastrophic car defect is one that involves a loss of control, a distraction, or a malfunction the driver doesn’t have the time or ability to react to, and that results in a life-altering injury or death.

Systems or components that can cause those sorts of injuries include airbags, seatbelts, sensors, ignition, anti-lock braking, wiring, and software or hardware, for example.  Structural failures, like those involving the rollbar, crumple zone, or auto glass, can also cause catastrophic injuries or death in a car accident, partly because the only time the quality of those unique components is tested is during an accident.

Sometimes those product failures are unique to one car, and other times they are part of a wider-spread problem affecting many cars.  Sometimes those defects were already known to a manufacturer, and other times they lead to a recall.

If you’re in Massachusetts or Georgia and have been seriously injured in a car accident – or if a loved one has – and you suspect or know that a defective car may have been part of the problem, injury attorney Robert J. Hartigan can help point you in the right direction.  Contact Lionhart Injury Law today for a free consultation.