Sad news from Fort Bend County, Texas as Honda and NHTSA announce one more U.S. Takata airbag death. This is the tenth death in the U.S. caused by the defective Takata airbag inflators and the eleventh worldwide. Of the ten U.S. fatalities, nine were in Honda vehicles and one was in a Ford vehicle. The non-U.S. death occurred in July 2014 in Malaysia. The victim in that incident was a pregnant woman driving a 2003 Honda City.
Sad news from Fort Bend County, Texas as Honda and NHTSA announce one more U.S. Takata airbag death. This is the tenth death in the U.S. caused by the defective Takata airbag inflators and the eleventh worldwide. Of the ten U.S. fatalities, nine were in Honda vehicles and one was in a Ford vehicle. The non-U.S. death occurred in July 2014 in Malaysia. The victim in that incident was a pregnant woman driving a 2003 Honda City.
The latest victim was a 17-year-old high school senior, Huma Hanif, from Richmond, Texas. The driver/victim was involved in a rear-end accident with a Honda CR-V that was waiting to make a left turn. Danny Beckwith, Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Deputy, said the victim was not excessively speeding when she rear-ended the CR-V. She was also wearing her seatbelt and the accident only caused moderate damage to her vehicle, a recalled 2002 Honda Civic.
The accident happened on March 31. In an interview, Deputy Beckwith said that “Everybody should have walked away from this.” Instead, the shrapnel sprayed into the passenger cabin and sliced through her neck and carotid artery. Authorities pronounced her dead at the scene.
According to Honda, the vehicle’s owner was mailed multiple recall notices. However, repairs to the airbag system were never made. The company reported that it has sufficient replacement parts to complete all repairs to recalled 2002 Civics, making this an avoidable tragedy had the owner heeded the notices.
While it has the parts to complete repairs to the 2002 Civics, Honda said that it doesn’t yet have parts for a driver airbag inflator recall it announced in February. However, the company expects those parts to begin arriving in the next few days. Honda said, “We continue to encourage all owners of affected vehicles to seek repair immediately.”
To that end, Jeffrey Smith, a Honda spokesperson, said the company has increased the customer relations team handling this issue to over double the size it was previously. “This is a very motivated, dedicated and engaged group, working seven days a week to help customers get their vehicles repaired,” he said.
Mr. Smith also reported on the company’s recall/repair efforts to date:
- Over 9.9M mailers
- 9M postcards
- 5M email messages
- 8M automated and direct telephone calls
- Social media campaigns, and
- Targeted advertising
That is not enough, according to some. Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) issued a statement saying that the March 31 death “shows that the current recall efforts are just not getting the job done. Takata and the automakers have to step up their efforts to locate, notify and fix every impacted car as soon as possible – before anyone else dies.”
NHTSA’s statement said that it “has demanded that manufacturers work to a 100 percent completion rate, and take all efforts necessary to reach that goal.” One way the agency hopes to reach that goal “is renewing its call to all auto manufacturers involved in the Takata air bag recall to intensify and expand their outreach to affected vehicle owners.”
As of March 11, NHTSA said about one-third of the vehicles recalled through December 2015 have had the defective Takata airbag inflators replaced. Honda heads that list with about 54% completion of its recalls through December.
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