You don't think it'll happen to you. You feel at ease as you cruise down the highway, weaving in and out of cars on familiar city streets. You become complacent. You feel invincible.
That's how I felt anyway until I came face to face with the bed of a silver Dodge Ram crashing through my windshield. Before I could blink, a brick wall of impact slammed into my chest, snapping me back like a rubber band against my black leather seats and effectively removing every last shred of oxygen from my lungs. Little did I know at the time that this was actually the most dangerous part of my collision.
I scrambled out of my vehicle to escape the toxic smoke fumes that had begun to asphyxiate me and surveyed the accident scene. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the damage was minimal to both cars, a hefty trailer hitch had taken most of the brute force.
"It could have been worse" was a phrase echoed by the police officers, my parents and the other victims as we progressed through crash protocol, but I wouldn't learn just how much worse it could have been until Friday morning, two days after the accident, while reading The Wall Street Journal.
"Leaky Seals at Issue in Takata Probe." The title didn't necessarily grab my attention, but the graphic below it did. Defective airbags leading to largest recall of vehicles in U.S. automotive history? Hold up.
According to the WSJ, these defective airbags are "turning minor auto crashes," like mine, "into fatal accidents." Over the past year, there have been eight deaths and over 100 injuries caused by "Takata airbags exploding with excessive force," resulting in the recall of nearly 32 million vehicles.
Takata supplies airbags to some of the largest car manufacturers in the world, including Toyota, Honda, Chrysler and BMW. They have been diligently investigating what is going wrong with their product and have pinpointed air and moisture penetrating the air-bag inflater seals as the main cause for these explosions.
Takata uses a chemical called ammonium nitrate in the manufacturing of its airbags. When ammonium nitrate is exposed to moisture, it clusters together. This concentration of particles causes the chemical to burn much faster than anticipated, emitting gas with a force far too strong to be contained by the canister, resulting in an explosion.
Despite it's volatile nature, Chief Executive Shigehisa Takada is adamant about continuing to use the company's signature ammonium nitrate propellant mix, standing by its safety and reliability when properly contained.
The challenge now is figuring out all of the different variables enabling moisture leakage. One possible cause is the fluid used to clean inflater canisters while they are being manufactured. This fluid could be reacting with the adhesive used to seal the holes that keep the inside of the inflater airtight, inhibiting a strong bond between the materials.
Another suspect are O-rings, rubber rings that "fit into the groove between the igniter and the inflater's metal case to prevent moisture air from seeping inside." Toyota engineers discovered that, over time, O-rings tend to become twisted or damaged, rendering them useless as sealants. On July 9, 2015, Honda recalled 4.5 million vehicles because of this discovery as a precautionary measure. They say the link between faulty O-rings and explosions is just a speculation, but to that, I say, "Remember the Space Shuttle Challenger which exploded in 1986 due to an O-ring leak?" Good call, Honda.
In January, the driver of a 2002 Honda Accord was killed after a faulty airbag ruptured during a crash and lodged sharp metal shrapnel from the inflator into the victim's neck. According to The WSJ, the 2002 Honda Accord was recalled in 2011 but never repaired.
Takata will ceaselessly investigate the root cause of these excessively forceful explosions: "We will continue to do everything we can to ensure uncompromised safety for our customers and the success of the recall efforts."
The problem is, not everyone is aware of this recall. It is pivotal that, if your car has a recalled airbag, you receive a replacement airbag inflater. After some investigation, I discovered that cars with my make and model were manufactured from 2000-2005 with Smokeless Driver Inflaters, which are at the center of these ongoing investigations. I can't even rationalize how fortunate I am that the airbag deployed properly. Like everyone kept saying, "it could have been [so much] worse."
Below is a list of cars that were manufactured with recalled airbags, compiled by The Chicago Tribune. Visit the Takata website to learn more about the recall and how to make sure that you and your loved ones are safe.
