When You Hit Another Vehicle Straight On at 30 MPH Your Airbag Is Supposed To Deploy and You Should Not Receive A Broken Neck
Recently I had the opportunity to meet with a client who was driving his vehicle when he crashed front on squarely to the rear of another vehicle. When the impact occurred, the airbags did not deploy and as a result he sustained a broken neck. The vehicle was a late model GMC Denali equipped with airbags. In such an accident, the airbag is normally designed as a safety device with the intention to protect the occupant who is correctly restrained with a seat belt.
As an experienced Pennsylvania airbag defect lawyer, I receive many calls each month from potential clients wondering why their airbags did not deploy. Airbags are designed to deploy in a frontal crash above a threshold level of a certain speed and when the airbag does not deploy properly there is most likely a defect in the airbag system. An airbag is not supposed to deploy in a minor frontal crash impact to the undercarriage of the vehicle or an impact with a small animal or when driving on a rough road. For that matter, it should never deploy if a vehicle is not involved in an accident.
In the case at hand, it appears that the frontal airbag may not have deployed due to a faulty sensor which was not properly calibrated. In fact, we are now aware of several other similar instances of non-deployment and other issues with a frontal airbag involving GMC vehicles. On certain utility vehicles and trucks, the airbag sensory diagnostic module contains an anomaly resulting in airbag non-deployment which increases the risk of injury or death to its occupants.
