About a quarter million owners of older Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep and Mitsubishi vehicles just got a Do Not Drive massage from their manufacturer, Stellantis. Why? Because the air bags that Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep and Mitsubishi was required by federal law to install in the vehicles they built turned out to be – wait for it – unsafe.
They had a manufacturing defect that could (and did) result in sudden “deployment” – that is to say, an explosion – that could (and did) spew metal shards into the faces of hundred of actual and tens of millions of potential victims, causing severe injuries and even death. Hundred have in fact been hurt and at least 26 of them killed. The defective air bags were supplied by Takata to many car companies – not just Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep and Mitsubishi.
Ford, Mazda, Nissan, BMW and Toyota vehicles are also “affected” and these manufacturers have also issued Do Not Drive warnings to people to own them.
The recall involves at least 67 million vehicles and for that reason it is taking a long time to get the defective – the dangerous – Takata air bags out of the vehicles that have them and replace them with new (supposedly “safe) air bags. There are still many vehicles in circulation – being driven – that have the dangerous Takata bags and because it is taking so long to deal with all these “affected” vehicles, Stellantis – which is the current owner of the Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep (and Ram truck) brands – decided to warn the people who own the “affected” vehicles to park them until the dangerous bags can be replaced.
“This action is intended to accelerate the repair of the remaining affected vehicles to safeguard owners, their families and the general public from the risk of serious injury or death,” a statement issued by Stellantis reads. “Over time, the chemical propellant inside certain Takata inflators can degrade, particularly in hot and humid conditions, increasing the risk of rupture during airbag deployment and the potential for metal fragments to enter the vehicle cabin.”
Best not to drive a vehicle so equipped.
But what is a person who owns an “affected” vehicle supposed to do if the “affected” vehicle is his or her only vehicle? Walk? Take the bus? Buy another vehicle to drive for however many months – or years – it takes to get an appointment to have the dangerous bags removed?
It’s a double-whammy imposition.
First, people are essentially compelled to buy vehicles equipped with air bags, because the federal government requires them to be installed in all new vehicles. This means they get to pay for these bags, a cost which many might prefer not to pay – if they were allowed the choice.
Imagine that. 
Then they find out that the air bags they were compelled to buy are defective – are dangerous – and are told it’s best to not drive the vehicle, which they bought precisely because they wanted (needed) a vehicle they could drive. One that – to really rub their faces in it – they were assured was safe because it had air bags.
Now they are stuck between a rock and a dangerous place. They can choose to not run the risk of a defective air bag exploding in their face by not driving the car they paid their hard-earned money to be able to drive. Or they can choose to run the risk of driving it – and hope the bag doesn’t explode in their face.
Catch 22.
Many people people will blame Takata for this debacle, but the blame properly resides with the federal government, which made air bags mandatory standard equipment back in the ’90s, thus depriving car buyers of any say over whether they wish to assume the risk of driving a car equipped with air bags.
This is not a trivial point because air bags – like firearms – can cause harm. This includes the ones that are not defective. They deploy violently, which is necessary for them to be effective in the instant that a crash occurs. But this force can – and has – caused injury and also death. The risk of this happening isn’t high, but it is absolutely there – and while advocates say the benefits of having air bags outweigh the slight risk, that is an arrogant usurpation of our right to decide whether the asserted benefits outweigh the risks, however minimal advocates say they are.
Even if they are. 
We are not, after, all children. More finely, we are not other people’s children – to be parented by them. And at our expense; keep in mind that air bags have added thousands of dollars in total ownership costs, including not just the bags themselves to the purchase price of the vehicle but also to insurance, due to potential and actual repair costs.
There is something very obnoxious abut being forced to pay the costs of added risk for “benefits” deemed worth it by people who do not pay a cent of those costs.
If air bags had not been mandated, they almost certainly would not have been installed in 67 million vehicles – and those are just the ones that got the “defective” bags. If people were free to skip air bags, in other words, there would almost certainly be far fewer defective ones in circulation and the smaller number could be replaced much faster. 
Instead the quarter-million owners of the “affected” Stellantis vehicles are told Do Not Drive – possibly for months, maybe longer – because it’s going to take that long for Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Mitsubishi dealers to deal with that many vehicles. Replacing air bags is job involving major disassembly work and that takes time. It is going to take a lot of that to process a quarter million vehicles. It has already taken years. The “affected vehicles – not just the Stellantis brand models – date back to the early 2000s. The issue with the Takata bags has been known for a decade – and it’s still an issue. 
Especially telling is the fact that when this issue became known – and admitted to by the federal “safety” apparat (NHTSA) – dealers were not permitted to disable the defective bags (as by installing an Off switch) even as a temporary expedient. This could have been very quickly and it would have eliminated any risk to the people effectively forced to sit inches away from these defective and dangerous air bags.
Probably because the apparatchiks were “concerned” some people would just turn them Off permanently rather than have them replaced.
This shows what the federal government is actually concerned about – and it isn’t our “safety.”
. . .
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Any day now, these do-not-drive safety warnings will turn into your vehicle being remotely disabled via the internet through the vehicle’s software (or kill switch on the newest ones). I often wonder if these “crises” aren’t in-fact manufactured just to make such a thing seem legitimate in the eyes of the masses? “But it’s for our saaaaaaaaaaafety…..”.
This will happen sooner than we think. Bet ya!
I was rear-ended last week on the way in to work…had to stop for the car in front of me, but the car behind me didn’t stop. My truck maybe needs a new rear bumper, but it’s not a must-have. The car that hit it, OTOH, will probably be totaled. Not much of a surprise there.
As we were waiting for the cop to arrive, I saw that one of the other driver’s hands was bleeding. The airbag had deployed, and his hand must’ve been in the way.
25+ years ago, I was in a similar situation, but the roles were reversed: my car (an ’83 Celebrity, so definitely no airbags) slammed into the back of a stopped pickup with one of those industrial-grade rear bumpers with the diamondplate on top. The pickup was undamaged, but my car was totaled. That much hasn’t changed, and probably never will. What was different, though, was that unlike the other driver last week, I walked away without any injury because there was no airbag to smash my hand.
Succumbing to female domination has its cost(s). Pay up, suckers.
“Hundred have in fact been hurt and at least 26 of them killed.”
Apropos of nothing the official death count from exploding Ford Pintos is 27.
Find out how the airbag circuit deploys and disable it. Unplug the sensor at the bumper, or
“Search Assist
To disable airbags, you can usually pull the fuse associated with the airbag system, but this may trigger a warning light on the dashboard.”
or go to your local wrecking yard and have the grease monkey do it for you.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=airbag+sensor&t=brave&ia=images&iax=images
Shit like this is why old car are way better decided to just repair all the problems on my old car instead of buying a new one I fucking hate the new cars stupid expensive all look like a space ship so cheaply made I want no airbag and no safety shit should be able to order a car without it but today you have to live by what ever the dictator on high says is good but I can change on a whim.
By the way, that stylized ‘A’ in the Stellantis logo, surrounded by a nebula of dots?
It’s an inflamed sphincter. You’ll never be able to unsee it …
I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down and the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire, the ring of fire
— Johnny Cash, Ring of Fire
“It’s an inflamed sphincter. You’ll never be able to unsee it …”
Funny how the truth is ultimately revealed.
Perhaps that’s why the front of a Tesla always reminds me of a snake.
Social Distortion’s version was much better than Johnny Cash’s. Don’t know about the inflamed sphincter, I’m a perfect a$$hole…
After reading this article, I’ve come to the conclusion that the federal government has had a similar attitude towards COVID vaxxes and other vaxxes as well. For years we were told that vaccines (in addition to air bags) are “Safe and Effective!”, and that the benefits outweigh the risks. People who said otherwise were often smeared as CONSPIRACY THEORISTS or ANTI-VAXXERS. Well the whole COVID nonsense exposed “Safe and Effective!” and other narratives around not just COVID vaxxes but other vaxxes as a total LIE.
However, after the federal government effectively gave vaccine manufacturers immunity from being sued for harms caused by their products 40 years ago, their “Public health” apparatchiks gradually added more and more vaccines to the “Childhood Vaccination schedule”, and many states followed that schedule to implement vaccine mandates for children to go to school. But it’s curious how people think RFK Jr as HHS Secretary is the problem instead of the fact that these “Public health” bureaucracies have been under regulatory capture by Big Pharma for who knows how long.
Ten years ago, Forbes magazine asked: are there alternatives to airbags? The article includes this quote:
Flaura Koplin Winston, M.D., Ph.D. who is the scientific director, Center for Injury Research and Prevention, at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia said, “And let’s remember why we developed airbags. It was because people wouldn’t wear their seat belts.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jensen/2016/09/28/as-airbag-recalls-mount-are-there-alternatives-to-protect-drivers/
‘Flaura’ told us to wear our seat belts … and to floss our teeth, do our homework, and pick up our dirty clothes. But we wouldn’t listen. So we had to be punished. 🙁
Some other points raised in the article:
1. The effectiveness of a seat belt to prevent a fatality in a crash is more than 50%, while an airbag provides less than an additional 10% reduction in fatalities.
2. Ford and Volvo safety engineers believed 4-point belts could hold a person in the seat more securely and better distribute crash forces over more of the chest, reducing pressure on the rib cage, heart and lungs.
3. “Frontal airbags are mandated and the federal rule would need to change for anyone to consider alternatives. Despite recent recalls airbags are by-and-large working well, and even those under recall are saving lives every day.” — Becky Mueller, senior research engineer at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
*sigh*
These people have their own agenda. They believe their own bullshit. What we think doesn’t matter. For all practical purposes, they regard us as crash test dummies. We are entitled to regard them as Enemies of the People.
Statistics. Large numbers. People’s brains aren’t wired for measuring millions of things, especially your average government employee. With a big enough sample, 10% is a pretty big number. Doesn’t matter that it’s an estimate based on pushing vehicles down a track into a brick wall. When was the last time you collided with anything, let alone a brick wall?
Indeed, I’ve been a first responder for decades. Wrecks happen every day, and if you’re a traffic cop or a first responder you will have a mental model that says freedom is irrelevant if you can prevent injury or fatality. They are ugly and awful.
The other truth is that wrecks are unusual in the extreme and very seldom happen, and serious injury wrecks are even rarer and fatalities rarer still.
Both are true, but the reality is we aren’t a damned democracy and the government doesn’t get a vote on personal choices like seat belts, helmets, and air bags. Or your choice of military weapons.
Amen, Ernie!
In re this: “f you’re a traffic cop or a first responder you will have a mental model that says freedom is irrelevant if you can prevent injury or fatality.”
Down that road lies insufferable, limitless nannying. After all, on the very same logical basis, no one should be allowed to go on a wilderness hike alone (and never in anything less than temperate weather) or get up on the roof of their house to fix shingles or ride a bicycle for that matter. The logic extends to what we’re allowed to eat, too. Why, a heart attack might be prevented by outlawing the consumption of ribeyes! Obviously, alcohol is much too dangerous to be allowed. Someone might drink too much! Oy vey.
Life is itself one giant game of risk – and when risk-aversion becomes morbid and controlling it becomes pathological. The guiding principle ought to be: Leave others be so long as what they’re doing isn’t hurting you (in a definite, directly tangible way). The only people anyone has a right to parent are their own children. No one has the right to parent another adult, as if he were their child.
Coworker survived a 45 mph head on crash, no airbag just the normal 3 point lap/shoulder belt. No broken bones, sore, and a bone bruise (sternum?) that took months to heal. No shrapnel to the face though!
Another pisser is the effect all this “crash design” has had on interiors. Front seats with the seat edge way further from the door opening thus the child size front seats, large consoles and dash centers swooping down to that console, all to keep you penned in for the “proper” airbag deployment zone. My wife with the bum hip and back has to struggle into the 2018 Jeep GC, the damn seat is so far from the door opening. The 03 Escape she just pivots and sits down, ditto the 91 Silverado.
Airbags were originally sold as being a “safety” device in lieu of seat belts. A 200# unbelted person would be protected in a frontal crash.
It was total BS.
After they were mandated it was revealed that you must wear a seatbelt for them to perform as advertised. The real irony is that the increase in “safety” over just wearing a seatbelt was virtually nil.
When functioning properly the airbag will cause severe burns, bruising and, if your hands are not at 9-3 on the wheel and your thumbs pointing up, you can have broken bones and severe lacerations from rings and watches as your hands and arms are blasted into your face at the 200mph bag deployment speed. AND, if you have bags in the “B” pillar you’ll be lucky not to have your eardrum blown out by the explosion.
This is above and beyond the deadly consequences of a person of small stature simply sitting too close to the bag when it goes off. See: Why must kids be in the back seat?
What’s not to love about these Claybrook Claymores?
I suspect that if you pull the fuse for the air bag circuit that should be good enough to prevent operation of the airbag inflater but I don’t know what else is on that circuit. Of course that’s probably not “legal” either but as that article decades ago pointed out that most people committed at least 3 felonies every day without realizing it, so what’s another one?
At this point you’re better off trying to save yourself because GovCo surely won’t.
Hi Landru,
I disconnected the airbags in my ‘03 Corolla when they first identified this issue years ago. Pull the plug right where it connects to the airbag itself and it doesn’t throw a code, so I can still get my saaaaaaafety sticker. Now it is actually safer.