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BREAKING NEWS!!
Air Bag Lawsuit Results in $3.3 Million Award

November 13, 2003

Ford Motor Co. will have to pay $3.3 million according to a Florida jury. The air bag lawsuit has come to close after a womans 2000 car accident in her 1996 Ford Taurus caused the air bag to go off and resulted in fatal chest injuries. The single mother left behind a now 7-year old son.

According to the air bag lawsuit, older air bags can cause deadly problems for people of any size if they are too close to it when it is disarmed. The air bag in the 1996 Taurus went off after the woman hit a concrete wall at about 9mph.

The air bag was designed to go off in head-on crashes at 14 mph or faster, but only in certain situations at 9 mph. The auto lawsuit argued the air bag was defectively designed to go off in crashes slower than 10 mph when it was not needed, resulting in the single mothers death. The $3.3 million award to be paid to the 7-year old son was decided after the civil jury found the air bag system in the Taurus to be defective.

Public Citizen plans to sue the government in order to prevent a planned tire pressure-monitoring rule.

March 12, 2002

A consumer group, Public Citizen, is planning on suing the government. The group hopes to block a planned tire pressure-monitoring rule because they feel the Bush administration plan is aiding the industry to save money while sacrificing safety. President of Public Citizen, Joan Claybrook says the suit will be filed in federal appeal court once regulators make the overdue tire pressure-monitoring proposal.

Director of regulatory affairs at the White House budge office, John Graham must clear all rules. Graham's decision to reject a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposal for a system to monitor pressure on all four of a vehicle's tires is going to be the center of the suit that feels the White House overstepped their bounds when using cost grounds as speculation and infirm logic on safety to dismiss the plan.

The tire pressure rule ordered by Congress came after the Firestone/Ford tire problems that occurred because of tire tread separations. The tire tread separation problems were viewed as the cause to rollover crashes that killed more than 270 people and injuring hundred of other. The fatalities and injuries led to over 10 million Firestone tire recalls in 2000 and 2001. This encouraged government to reassess industry regulations and defects.

A compromise allowing automaker to choose between two monitoring systems that are currently in limited use would be incorporated in the new rule according to regulators and the White House.

NHTSA hires Anderson to evaluate the U.S.'s auto defect system.

February 26, 2002

Audit firm Andersen was hired by auto safety regulators to assess the development of a system to identify auto defect trends. This move comes after the White House decision that sought review of government contracts with the company. A $52,000 contract was made between the NHTSA and Andersen on February 19th to assess software development and find any problems that could lead to large cost overruns and schedule delays.

The defect information system is reliant upon a standard software that is dependent on the success of the congressional mandates to improve auto safety following the fatal accidents due to the defective Firestone tires. A previous audit performed in January came to the conclusion that the NHTSA's way of identifying defect was flawed and they strongly recommended carefully developing the new information system.

Inspector General Kenneth Mead from the Transportation Department recommended in January that the NHTSA hire an independent firm to evaluate the progress of developing the information management system after the White House budget office questioned if Enron and Andersen could perform quality work and regulators interviewed Andersen and other companies. Mead feels the agency is in danger of not completing the goal by next fall due to poor planning and management.

New rollover ratings to be put into place.

February 21, 2002

Government advisers think that the government should revise their assessments of a vehicle's rollover risk so that the consumers are able to obtain more safety information. There are around 10,000 fatalities and 27,00 serious injuries due to vehicle rollover every year. The report found the current system too broad and recommended federal regulators develop a new rating system to allow a more comprehensive way to compare similar vehicles. An NHTSA spokesman said they would consider the suggestion.

The Firestone tire failures prompted Congress to order regulators to devise a new test because of the high number of fatalities and injuries in rollover accidents. This new test will put vehicles through a series of maneuvers performed on a test rack that is estimated to be integrated by November. Safety advocates showed their support for the report.

Former Ford employees file suit alleging unlawful business operations.

February 15, 2002

A lawsuit filed in December with 75 former Ford employees are alleging that Ford used Environ Inc., a wholly owned Ford subsidiary to help sell damaged vehicles and suspect vehicle parts. These vehicle parts are inclusive of recalled Firestone tires that were the cause for at least 271 deaths and over 800 injuries from rollover accidents because of tread separations. The two-part recall of Firestone tires totaled an estimated 10 million tires.

The allegations against Ford are that they salvaged experimental parts, which had not passed safety standards and prepared them for public sale unlawfully. Employee jobs were threatened if they refused to participate in the illegal practices according to the lawsuit. In addition, plaintiffs have claimed 2,000 flood-damaged vehicles were shipped from a Ford assembly plant to Environ and sold. Of the 10 million recalled tires the suit has alleged that a substantial number of these were delivered to Environ and then sold.

Firestone tire defects more to blame than Firestone would like emphasized.

February 15, 2002

The Safetyforum.com performed an analysis of NHTSA's Firestone database showing when Ford Explorer tire failure occurs it is four times more likely to lead to deadly rollovers than tire failure on other SUVs. This analysis comes after Firestone's attempt to place emphasis on the oversteer variable of the Ford Explorer.

White House asks the Transportation Department for new tire monitoring proposal.

February 13, 2002

The White House asked the Transportation Department to make up a new plan because a tire pressure monitoring proposal by auto safety regulators is flawed. A proposed rule on tire pressure monitoring for all vehicles was submitted to the NHTSA with a request for fast response by the White House budget office because they feel the plan could compromise auto safety. The White House gave regulators six weeks to come up with a new proposal as an incentive to install anti-lock brakes as part of the regulatory plan.

Congress directed the NHSTSA to come up with a rule requiring automakers to provide information to drivers about vehicle tires being under inflated because it can be dangerous. This request follows the Firestone tire problems that prompted the recall of 10 million tires due to the death of at least 271 people and hundreds of other injuries.

Please contact us if you or a family member was injured or killed due to a Ford auto defect.

NHSTA denies Firestone's request to investigate Ford Explorers

February 13, 2002

Ford received good news when the federal government chose not to open an investigation on the Ford Explorer after Bridgestone/Firestone requested the defect investigation. Hundreds of deaths and serious injuries were caused by treat separations due to firestone tires, causing Ford Explorer rollovers. The Center for Auto Safety's Clarence Ditlow claimed this did not prove the Ford Explorer was safe, simply that the focus was on the financial well being of the automotive company.

Please contact us if you or a family member was injured or killed due to a Ford auto defect.

Ford, Firestone find class action lawsuit unwarranted.

February 13, 2002

There are already hundreds of personal-injury lawsuits in courts all over the country against Ford and Bridgestone due to the tread separations leading to rollover that caused 271 deaths and over 800 serious injuries. Now the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals is considering if product-liability lawsuits should have been certified as a class action. Ford Explorer sales during the 1991-2001 years were estimated at 3 -4 million, with tens of millions of Firestone tires.

Federal regulators have linked the Firestone tires to mainly Ford Explorers for the rollover accidents that resulted after treat separations. A Ford spokeswoman finds the class action suit "unwarranted". The lawyers representing the cases did not appear concerned.

Please contact us if you or a family member was injured or killed due to a Ford auto defect.

Ford Explorer rollover accident settled.

February 5, 2002

A 1994 model Ford Explorer rollover accident involving a couple that was badly injured was settled. Following the Ford Explorer accident the couple filed a lawsuit, which was settled for $14.9 million, including $9.4 million against the dealer who sold the Ford to them. The Ford dealership did not correct a vibrating problem that began after their purchase of the SUV in 1997, as well as their repeated trips to the dealership. The jury decided that the Ford was defective in design and held the dealership and the state of California, where the accident occurred, and a road construction company liable. Ford Motor Co. was not found liable for the damages. Ford has been plagued with safety problems and their Explorer.

Please contact us if you or a family member was injured or killed due to a Ford auto defect.

Ford Explorer rollover ruling in favor of family.

January 31, 2002

Ford Explorers were ruled defective by design by a California jury. This was liable for manufacturing and shipping a faulty Explorer model. A jury ruled in favor of a family who experienced a Ford rollover accident that paralyzed the wife and severely injured the husband's leg. The Ford Explorer was just three months old when the accident occurred in 1997. The U.S. government said there have been more than 200 deaths from accidents due to either Ford vehicles or tires.

The jury ruled the Ford was faulty when the company shipped it and it was defective.

Please contact us if you or a family member was injured or killed due to a Ford auto defect.

Ford Ranger defects deliver another blow to the car company.

January 31, 2002

Ford ordered dealers to stop selling hundreds of its 2002 model Ranger pickup trucks because of rear axle problems. Eight hundred and four Rangers already on dealer lots were ordered off because of manual transmission and FX4 design package problems, and 374 of the pickups that have already been sold to customers will be recalled by Ford. The defect is due to bad differential casting according to a ford spokesman and can be fixed if the entire rear axle assembly is replaced. This Ford defect comes after their Firestone tire problems and other safety issues.

Please contact us if you or a family member was injured or killed due to a Ford auto defect.

Ford's buy back program coming to a close.

January 18, 2002

Ford has replaced around d9.5 million of the 13.5 million tires as part of its $3 billion program to buy back Firestone tires. The program will end at the close of March because Ford had issued an ending date to encourage consumers to turn in their tires to faster eliminate tires that should be replaced. The buy back program was because of the 6.5 million tires recalled that were used mainly on the Ford Explorers.

Please contact us if you or a family member was injured or killed due to a Ford auto defect.

Class action suit is affirmed, combining Ford and Firestone.

January 2, 2002

A class action suit combining defective tires was affirmed in a U.S. district court. The multidistrict litigation against Ford Motor Company and Bridgestone/Firestone met four prerequisites for a class action.

Please contact us if you or a family member was injured or killed due to a Ford auto defect.

If you have any questions about your legal rights regarding an injury caused by an auto defect, please contact us.

The federal government is under increasing pressure to impose tougher regulations on vehicle crashworthiness. In a long overdue effort, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration...

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