New Lawsuit Alleges Millions of GM Crash Sensors Defective
Class action litigation recently filed in federal court in Michigan alleges that millions of GM customers have been driving General Motors vehicles that have defective crash sensors. These sensors fail to properly deploy airbags and lock seatbelts in certain types of crashes. The sensor defect has been ongoing for more than ten years. The lawsuit states that General Motors knowingly hid these defective sensors. The allegedly defective GM crash sensors are on popular vehicle models including:
- Silverado
- Tahoe
- Astro
- Trailblazer
What is the Nature of the Defect?
Vehicle airbags and seatbelt locking systems are dependent upon sensors and devices called “diagnostic modules” that determine when a crash has happened that requires activation of the airbags and seatbelt locks. The sensors “feel” the impact and supply data to the “sensing diagnostic module” that has been set to react to certain data by sending out signals to inflate the airbags and/or lock the seatbelts in order to protect the vehicle occupants from injury. The diagnostic module calibration essentially instructs the vehicle to trigger the airbags and seatbelts in certain circumstances and not to do so in other circumstances, for example, by triggering airbags in a high-speed frontal impact but not in a low-speed frontal impact. The alleged defect in these millions of GM crash sensors is that they are programmed to allow airbags and seatbelt locks to operate only in near-instantaneous crashes and not in crashes that take a longer amount of time to happen, thereby subjecting vehicle occupants to possible injury or death in the crashes that take longer to occur.
What does the Class Action Lawsuit Allege?
The case of Chism v. General Motors, filed last month in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, states that the GM crash sensors in these vehicles were set only to allow airbag and seatbelt deployment with .045 seconds of when a crash begins, thereby preventing airbag and seatbelt activation — and their protection of occupants — in crashes that took a longer period of time. The case includes data from the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration suggesting that nearly 1,300 people were either killed or injured in front-end collisions involving these vehicles in which the airbags did not activate. The lawsuit also alleges that concerns about this short time limit were raised by the engineers who actually designed and developed the sensing diagnostic module at least as early as 1999, and that General Motors was aware of these concerns.
Did the Company Know that GM Crash Sensors were Faulty?
In addition to showing that the sensor design engineers had raised red flags about the short time limit for safety system activation in 1999, the lawsuit also points out that engineers in GM’s passenger car division actually had followed recommendations and increased the module time limit by more than a factor of three. The truck division at GM (the vehicles identified in the class action lawsuit are either trucks or based on truck chassis) decided, however, not to change from the 45-millisecond original calibration for the sensor modules. The lawsuit also points to the increasing total of crashes over time that may have looked like airbag failures in the vehicles that were publicly reported and of which GM would have been aware as further evidence that the company would have known something was wrong.
Why Would an Auto Manufacturer Not Report a Design Flaw and Correct It?
Only through investigations by regulators and potentially through pre-trial discovery would evidence of the actual decision-making likely be turned up, but in past cases where vehicle manufacturers chose to hide vehicle defects rather than report and correct them, the issue pretty much always came down to one thing: money. Recalling millions of vehicles costs money. Repairing or replacing millions of defective parts costs money. Highlighting potential liability for injuries and deaths that may have resulted from defective parts costs money.
For example, many different auto manufacturers have been affected in recent years by the well-known defects in Takata airbags that have resulted in tens of millions of vehicles being recalled for airbag replacements. Auto manufacturers were aware of these for several years and of the potential for these exploding airbags to seriously injure or kill vehicle occupants — lawsuits related to the problem dated back at least to 2014. And yet, when NHTSA directed General Motors to recall almost 6 million pickups and SUVs with these defective Takata airbags, the company argued that the dangers were of no consequence, alternately asking regulators to delay the recall due to the hundreds of millions of dollars it would cost GM for airbag replacement.
What Next?
This new class-action lawsuit seeks to represent drivers across the nation who owned or leased vehicles with these sensor modules back to 2009 (when the General Motors company was re-formed following the financial crisis), as well as proposing classes in some specific states. An auto products liability attorney can assist people who have been injured or lost family members in motor vehicle impacts where the alleged defect may have prevented airbags and/or seatbelt locks from activating in order to protect the vehicle occupants. Determining whether such a defect is present and whether or not it contributed to an injury is a highly technical process requiring expert investigation and analysis — a process in which a skilled lawyer can be of significant help to those who have been hurt, as well as in seeking full compensation when this is found to be the case.
Watch a YouTube video showing how some types of airbag sensors work:
Sacramento Personal Injury Attorneys | Auto Defect Claims
Hello, I’m Ed Smith, a personal injury lawyer in Sacramento, California. If you or a family member has been injured in a motor vehicle accident involving a defective auto part like a faulty airbag or seatbelt sensor, please call me today at (916) 921-6400 or (800) 404-5400 for free and friendly advice. You can also reach us through our online contact form.
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