Check your air bags
Used car dealers urge consumers to check for safety recalls amid deadly warnings
Published:Sunday | July 21, 2024 | 12:10 AM
President of the Jamaica Used Car Dealers Association, Lynvale Hamilton, said consumers must take responsibility for staying informed about safety recalls affecting their vehicles.
Hamilton’s comment comes in response to industry experts’ warnings that tens of thousands of vehicles with deadly air bag defects are currently in operation in Jamaica.
“We are not new car dealers. So the onus would be on the consumers, after having heard about these recalls, to contact the local dealer to get redress or whatever the manufacturer says is to be done about these vehicles,” he said.
“In a case like this where you have defective air bags, there are no checks that we would have done to ascertain such a fault,” he said when asked if used car dealers share some responsibility for the safety of the vehicles they sell.
The risk posed by faulty Takata air bag was brought into focus following the death of veteran journalist Job Nelson, who was employed by this newspaper at the time. An autopsy revealed that Nelson was killed by a metal object that was discharged into his chest with “immense force” from the air bag of his 2007 Honda Fit Aria motor car after it crashed along Spanish Town Road, near St Andrew Technical High School, on May 21.
Under recall
The car is under recall for the front passenger air bag, checks have revealed. His brother, Mark Nelson, said the family has not yet examined the issue. “I’ve not gotten around to that yet,” he said.
It was initially reported that Job Nelson died from a gunshot wound.
The last known death linked to Takata air bags was in the US state of Kentucky in February 2022. According to the NHTSA, the driver side air bag of a 2002 Honda Accord ruptured during a crash, hurling shrapnel that killed the driver.
In July 2014, a pregnant Malaysian woman was killed in a collision involving her 2003 Honda City motor car which contained a defective air bag.
The woman, aged 42, reportedly died when a metal fragment from a ruptured driver’s side air bag sliced into her neck after her car was hit by another vehicle, according to a lawsuit filed by her father in a Miami federal court.
Their deaths are among 33 that have been linked to air bag defects worldwide, including 25 in the US, seven in Malaysia and one in Australia, American media outlets have reported. At least 400 people have also been injured.