Blogged by cecania80 at livejournal
Imagine you’re driving home after a pleasant dinner with friends
one night. An oncoming vehicle veers and slams into your car. Glass flies and
metal buckles in that terrifying split second, but your airbag doesn’t open.
Zhensong flooded the U.S. market with tens of thousands of
counterfeit bags made at his plant in China. A suspected cohort named Igor
Borodin allegedly sold 7,000 of the knockoffs. All told, some 250,000 bags
could be out there, either installed or waiting to be installed, the feds say.
Zhensong has 37 months in federal prison to rethink his career choice.
How big is airbag fraud
nationally? That’s anybody’s guess; nobody keeps total stats.
And most body shops are honest, but some
knowingly install worthless airbags after the valid original bags deploy during
a crash. Buy a $50 knockoff from the internet or a shady street dealer, and
charge the insurer several hundred dollars.
Body shops also shove beer cans, packing
peanuts, old sneakers and other junk into the airbag compartment. Or they just
leave the compartment empty.
Sometimes a body shop will even pull out an
airbag that hasn’t deployed, then lie to the insurance adjuster that the bag
had opened during the accident.
Used and salvaged vehicles are especially
vulnerable to these scams, but so is your new car if it crashes. So let’s
return to Zhensong. Alarmed carmakers have set up call centers that drivers
like you can contact to see if your airbag is counterfeit.
Innocent drivers have died or been
grievously injured without airbag protection. San Diego-area teenager Bobby
Ellsworth died when the Dodge pickup truck in which he was riding crashed. A
body shop had stuffed the airbag compartment with paper and glued it shut. Even
the dashboard light was disabled so it wouldn’t flash a warning.
Nursing assistant Damaris Gatihi was
driving along Interstate 5 in Seattle. Her Toyota Corolla was bumped from
behind, then spun around and hit another vehicle head-on. Her airbag didn’t
deploy; she died from massive bleeding in her heart. A body shop had cut out
the airbags and glued the covers back on to make the bags look functional. A
local TV investigation discovered numerous used cars for sale without airbags
and phony compartment covers.
Laura Vega of Houston was badly injured and
her mother killed when their car was hit head-on. Neither air bag worked. The
passenger-side airbag had been previously deployed, then stuffed back in and
the cover taped shut. There was no driver-side airbag at all.
Connie Van Slyke’s used minivan crashed.
The Kansas City, Mo. woman was killed instantly, possibly after falling asleep
at the wheel. Her neck was broken, relatives told reporters. Connie had bought
the minivan used, just two weeks prior. The vehicle had been in an earlier
crash and the airbags had deployed. Nobody reconnected the bags, and the
dashboard warning light was removed. Connie was a single mother; she left
behind three young sons.
Najma Ladhani was driving alone in her car
outside of Vancouver, Canada. She swerved into an oncoming car. She was found
dead, crushed over the steering wheel. A piece of foam filled the compartment
instead of an airbag.
Ok, enough of these terrible deaths. Point
made: Airbag cons are a nasty insurance ripoff, but a far worse threat to the
lives of everyone in a vehicle.
You can turn the odds in your favor with by
taking these life-saving steps:
Check the dashboard airbag safety light. It
should blink for a few seconds then turn off. If the light doesn’t come on or
keeps blinking, you may have a faulty airbag;
Have a certified mechanic you trust inspect
the airbags of any used or salvaged vehicle you’re considering buying. Don’t
try to take off the lid yourself; it might trigger an explosion;
Use a commercial service to search the
history of a used vehicle you’re considering buying. See if it has been in a
crash or salvaged; and
And once again, contact your carmaker call
center and see if your airbag is bogus.
It’s time that every driver mobilizes to
take the air out of airbag scams. This is one speed limit we should all break.
