Articles Posted in Design Defect in Vehicle

The latest quarterly report from the Safety Institute’s Vehicle Safety Watch List shows that Jeep’s 2014 and 2015 Grand Cherokee 4×4’s are holding onto the top 2 most unsafe car rankings.  According to death and injury reports submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee’s are plagued by power train issues. One of the primarily reported issues in 2014 and 2015 Jeeps is that the car has difficulty recognizing that it has been put into park. This has led to vehicle rollaways, causing crashes, injuries and death.

In June 2016, 27 year old actor Anton Yelchin, best known for his role in Star Trek, died after his Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled backwards onto him in his driveway.  The lawsuit describes how he was pinned underneath the car, suffering, until he died alone on his own property. His parents are suing Fiat Chrysler, Jeep’s parent company, for wrongful death, alleging that the faulty gear shift caused the car to roll and kill their son. Jeep had recalled over 1 million Grand Cherokees in April 2016 for the defect.

Taken directly from The Safety Institute’s latest report, below is the full list of the 15 vehicles to watch out for:

The Safety Institute has released its Vehicle Safety Watch List, a result of research on the most dangerous vehicles on the road today. The Safety Institute is a non-profit organization committed to advocating for and educating consumers about product safety and injury prevention. The Vehicle Safety Watch List is a quarterly report based on recall and car accident data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The efforts behind The Vehicle Safety Watch List are funded in large part by the parents of Brooke Melton, a 29 year old woman who died in a car accident after her Chevy Cobalt malfunctioned. After the death of their daughter, Mr. & Mrs. Melton discovered that General Motors was aware of the cause of the malfunction and had not disclosed the information to the public.

Jeep Grand Cherokee 4 x 4 Tops the List of Cars to Watch Out For
Jeep’s Grand Cherokee 4 x 4 (make: 2014 & 2015) has taken the 1st and 2nd spot in the list, both for issues with the power train.

The list below, taken directly from the Safety Institute’s website, contains 15 cars that have shown trends in defects, have been investigated for issues by NHTSA and/or recalled by the manufacturer. Clicking in the notes column will take you to the Safety Institutes summary of the data reported to NHTSA regarding the defects to the part of the car identified as being problematic.

How to Find out If Your Car Has Been Recalled 
Typically, manufacturers notify owners via mail or phone call about a recall on their vehicle. However, for those who have purchased a used car, how can you be sure that the car has been serviced for an issue listed under a recall? The NHTSA operates a database of all cars that have been repaired as part of a recall and allows the user to search by the vehicle’s VIN number.  If you have a previously owned car, we encourage you to search for your vehicle to find out if yours has been repaired as part of a recall or is still in need of service. Roads are a shared resource and it is our duty to ensure that the cars we are driving are not a danger to ourselves or to others.

Product liability is a branch of personal injury law that deals primarily with dangerous and/or defective products being brought to the market due to negligent manufacturers. Since 1966, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has required companies and their affiliates to recall some 400 million motor vehicles, 50 million tires and 70 million other components to correct potentially dangerous auto design defects and keep consumers safe while on the road.
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Last month, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration levied a $40 million civil penalty on German automaker BMW following a series of violations of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act and NHTSA regulations. The infractions include two separate incidents, one in October of 2014 and another in July of 2015, in which a Mini Cooper (a subsidiary of BMW) 2-Door Hardtop failed to meet crash-protection minimum requirements.
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In the United States, we are fortunate enough to be protected by federal regulatory agencies like the U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). This means that when we buy a vehicle at our local dealership, we can be pretty sure that it will work properly and in a way that doesn’t compromise our safety.

The NHTSA maintains this level of consumer confidence by carefully monitoring the automotive industry for potentially dangerous design defects and products. When an automobile or component is found to have a serious safety defect, recalls are promptly conducted to correct the problem before it has the chance to injure the general public. Since the passage of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act in 1966, approximately 400 million cars, trucks buses, motorcycles, motor scooters, and other recreational vehicles have been recalled, and an additional 127 million tires and pieces of auto equipment have also been recovered in order to correct safety issues. (Lawyers and Settlements)
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There were a record 74.2 million recalls in 2014 (the last year that data has been made available), and well over 130 million automobiles have been recalled in the United States in the last two years. Still, it’s important to note that a large number of recalls is not always a bad thing, and if handled properly, proactive measures such as these can actually help many manufacturers catch problems before they have a chance to hurt consumers. Design defects can become a serious problem when they go unaddressed, and such negligence on the part of companies may be grounds for an injury or wrongful death lawsuit. (CNN Money; NHTSA)

At Levin & Perconti, our lawyers have fought and won hundreds of cases against negligent manufacturers and distributors, and we are proud of the important role that our legal team has played in holding companies accountable for the products they produce and distribute. Our lawyers want to provide readers with a list of some of the most common automobile design defects, with the hope that this information will help our drivers recognize potential problems related to their vehicles before they are injured.
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Statistically speaking, driving is the most dangerous task mot people will perform each day. Around 6 million automobile accidents happen on U.S. roadways every year, injuring 3 million people, and costing approximately 40,000 people their lives. To keep ourselves as safe as possible, we as consumers expect our vehicles to be free of potentially dangerous design defects. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and the number of annual recalls issued in our country may surprise you.
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