What Automakers Don't Want You to Know

Bisnar Chase Personal Injury Attorneys Reveals Driving Dangers of Deadly Auto Defects

Newport Beach, CA, May 1, 2012 -- Bisnar Chase Personal Injury Attorneys (/) of Orange County, California who specialize in national catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases involving defective cars, today revealed information about deadly auto defects they say automakers don't want the driving public to know.

1. Defective seat backs.
   Surprisingly, the firm says that when it comes to strength and structural integrity, a seat as flimsy as a lawn chair can pass today's minimum safety requirements. During a crash, defective car seats come unattached from the floor, or defective seat backs flip into the rear compartment, causing restraint systems to fail and occupants to be tossed around the interior of the vehicle. The firm says many of its clients have been injured as a result of defective car seats, including Jaklin Romine who was awarded $24.7 million last year after being rendered a quadriplegic when her defective seat back collapsed causing her head to strike the rear compartment.
2. Insufficient roof strength.
   Even today, many vehicles lack sufficient roof strength, causing occupants to sustain head and spinal cord injuries and blunt force trauma during rollover crashes. A crushed car roof can also compromise the functionality of seatbelts and windows which can lead to passenger ejection resulting in catastrophic injuries and death. Gloria Levesque was rendered an incomplete quadriplegic in a Ford Expedition rollover accident in 2003 after the SUV's substantially weak roof collapsed and crushed inward, causing her to sustain severe head and spinal cord injuries.
3. Defective seat belts.
   Surprisingly, a large number of auto defects cases represented by Bisnar Chase Personal Injury Attorneys involve seat belt malfunctions of one kind or another despite restraint system advancements through the years. Seat belt defects include those that are easily unlatched by flying objects or body parts during a crash, others that are made with poorly designed webbing that loosens or tears in crashes, and still others that come detached from their anchor points and mounts. In the case of Joshua Newman, his defective seat belt gave way after his car crashed into a light pole in 2003. Joshua suffered a traumatic brain injury, chest trauma and heart failure. His passenger, whose seat belt did not fail, received minor injuries.
4. Defective windows.
   In addition to keeping outside objects from entering a vehicle, windows serve an important purpose of keeping vehicle occupants inside. What the firm has learned is that in certain vehicles, automakers have cut costs by using weak metal frameworks around windows – usually located around side and rear windows – and cheaper tempered glass that shatters more easily than laminated glass. In 2006, Michael Samardzich was permanently blinded after shards of tempered glass pierced and ruptured his left eye in a crash involving a GMC Yukon in which he was a passenger. And in 2007, Carmen Todd was killed in a GMC Yukon Denali rollover accident. The wrongful death case cited a malfunctioning and unsafe window design, among other defects, that allowed Carmen to be partially ejected from the vehicle.
5. Insufficient lateral and roll stability.
   The firm says historical design flaws in higher profile vehicles like Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) and trucks, coupled with the lack of mandatory Electronic Stability Control (ESC), have made certain vehicles more susceptible to loss of steering control, loss of traction control and rollovers. While all 2012 model year vehicles are required to have ESC in the U.S., not all cars manufactured before 2012 were equipped with ESC – technology that was first introduced in 1987.
   “Rollover crashes due to insufficient lateral and roll stability are common,” said Brian Chase, auto defects expert and partner at Bisnar Chase Personal Injury Attorneys. “What’s shocking is the 25-year lapse in mandating a technology like ESC which has been proven to prevent one-third of the nation’s fatal car accidents. When it comes right down to it, safety features are an added expense. What we’ve learned is that automakers simply care more about profitability than they do about protecting innocent motorists."

About Bisnar Chase Personal Injury Attorneys

Bisnar Chase Personal Injury Attorneys represent people who have been very seriously injured or lost a family member due to a California personal injury accident, car accident, defective product or negligence throughout the state. The auto defects law firm has won a wide variety of auto defect cases against many major auto manufacturers, including Ford, General Motors, Toyota, Nissan and Chrysler. Brian Chase, auto defects expert and partner at Bisnar Chase is the author of the most up-to-date and comprehensive auto defect book available today, Still Unsafe at Any Speed: Auto Defects that Cause Wrongful Deaths and Catastrophic Injuries.