Cole was a former Meridian High School standout and top New York Mets baseball prospect when he was killed on March 31, 2001. According to the plaintiffs’ lawsuit, Cole was driving home to Mississippi on I-10 after spring training in Port St. Lucie, Florida, when the fatal accident occurred. Just south of the Florida-Georgia line, Cole veered to avoid colliding with another vehicle, causing his own vehicle to roll over more than three times. Cole was thrown from the Explorer because of a defective safety belt, the lawsuit asserted. He later died at a Florida hospital.

Cole’s 17-year-old cousin Ryan Cole survived the crash with serious injuries. The jury awarded him $1.5 million in compensatory damages.

The lawsuit blamed Brian Cole’s death on a defective safety belt and also on the lateral instability of the Ford Explorer, a design flaw that allows the vehicle to roll over more easily than most other SUVs.

This trial was the Cole family’s third attempt to win an award against Ford. The two previous trials resulted in hung juries. The Jasper County jury returned with a $131 million verdict after the compensatory phase of the case. Ford settled for an undisclosed amount during the punitive damage phase.

Cole, a 1997 Meridian High graduate, was one of three Mississippi prep athletes to hit four home runs in a game, a state record. He was also an accomplished football player at Meridian High.

Mets officials said Cole was one of their top three prospects. The major league team projected he would be a starter for them at the start of the 2003 baseball season.

Ford severed a long-standing partnership with Firestone in 2001 after several tire blowouts triggered rollover accidents, causing numerous fatalities and injuries to drivers and occupants of Explorer SUVs.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Jury awards athlete’s family $131 million for defective seat belt, rollover

Health officials say the salmonella outbreak began on May 11, with the last reported case occurring on June 5. The ages of people with confirmed cases of the unusual bacteria ranged to 2 to 79. No deaths have been confirmed.

Salmonella is usually a debilitating sickness that lasts from 4 to 7 days. Symptoms typically include fever, nausea, vomiting, dehydration, diarrhea, abdominal pain and cramps, and headache. Patients with weakened immune systems such as young children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable to salmonella bacteria. The infection can leave the intestines and infect the major organs, often resulting in liver damage and death.

Although the exact source of the salmonella has not been identified yet, Subway said that it voluntarily withdrew some items from its stores including onions, green peppers, and tomatoes in early June.

Today Subway issued a public apology for the outbreak: “We are truly sorry for the difficulty this situation has caused you, our customer, and are working diligently to solve this mystery and to regain your trust,” Subway said in a statement. The company added that it is now “confident the current fresh produce being served in Subway restaurants are safe to eat.”

The massive salmonella outbreak has been linked to Subway restaurants in 28 counties: Bureau, Cass, Champaign, Christian, Coles, Dekalb, DeWitt, Ford, Fulton, Henry, Knox, LaSalle, Livingston, Macon, Marshall, McLean, Moultrie, Ogle, Peoria, Rock Island, Sangamon, Schuyler, Shelby, Tazewell, Vermilion, Warren, Will, and Winnebago.

Also today, a 46-year-old woman who was severely sickened after eating at a Subway location in Aurora, Illinois, filed a lawsuit against the restaurant chain, alleging the food sickened her to the point of needing emergency medical treatment.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 76 million people in the United States get sick every year from salmonella and other foodborne illnesses and 5,000 people die from them.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Massive salmonella outbreak linked to 47 Illinois Subway restaurants

NHTSA is investigating possible causes of sudden acceleration in the American-made cars. The probe is still ongoing, but floor mats appear to be a likely culprit just as they were reported to be in many of the sudden, unintended acceleration incidents involving millions of Toyota and Lexus vehicles.

Although no recalls have yet been issued, NHTSA has “warned owners of 2010 Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan vehicles not to place unsecured floor mats — made by Ford or anyone else — on top of the standard, carpeted floor mat in the driver’s side foot well,” reports the Detroit News. Placing a rubberized all-weather floor mat on top of the conventional rug floor mat can cause the accelerator pedal to jam in a downward position, potentially leading to high-speed crashes and other accidents.

NHTSA said that its preliminary investigation encompassed 249,301 vehicles, a small fraction of the cars and trucks recalled by Toyota over what that company claims to be defective floor mats.

Ironically, one of complaints received by NHTSA was submitted by Dan Edmunds, the Director of Vehicle Testing at Edmunds.com – a widely respected authority on automobile safety and quality. Edmunds explains on his company website that he had removed the rubber floor mat from the driver side of a Ford Fusion he was testing because it was stacked on top of the regular secured floor mat. However, a mechanic later found the all-weather floor mat in the trunk and put it back on top of the driver-side mat.

“I mashed the throttle to pass a slow-moving vehicle by shooting into a gap in traffic in the lane to my left,” Edmunds explains. “Lane change accomplished, I relaxed my foot to settle in, but the car kept accelerating [unintentionally, at this point] for perhaps another two or three seconds. Just as the Fusion bore down to within a couple car lengths of the car ahead, I heard a click down by my feet and the pedal released, returning all to normal.”

The click Edmunds heard was the gas pedal popping loose from under the stacked floor mats.

Edmunds said the frightening experience helped him relate to all the drivers who have been trapped in a vehicle that races out of control.

“Don’t assume everything is OK because a) you don’t drive a Toyota/Lexus product or b) because everything looked OK in a random curbside test. The real world contains far more variables and conditions than you or I can account for,” Edmunds said.

To date, NHTSA has not received any reports of injury linked to the Ford vehicles.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › NHTSA investigating reports of sudden acceleration in Ford and Mercury cars

Last September, Toyota and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a recall of millions of Lexus and Toyota vehicles that have the potential to accelerate suddenly and unintentionally. After nearly two years of denying reports of unintended acceleration problems, Toyota finally issued a recall when California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor and his family died in a crash while driving a Lexus ES 350. As tragic as that accident was, it helped bring Toyota’s unintended acceleration problem to light and prompted the company to serious and definitive action.

Inaba, who serves as the chairman of Toyota Motor Sales USA and president of Toyota Motor North America, said that his company is now working to restore quality and safety in its vehicles.

“During 2009, our commitment to quality and safety — the two most important attributes of Toyota — were severely questioned, and we learned some lessons the hard way,” Inaba said.

“These issues generated plenty of debate and unfortunately, some miscommunication,” he said. “That was our own fault.”

Inaba’s words had the same apologetic ring to them as those spoken by Akio Toyoda, Toyota’s President and grandson of the company’s founder, when he spoke at a press conference in Tokyo just after the Saylor crash last August.

“Four precious lives have been lost. I offer my deepest condolences,” Mr. Toyoda said. “Customers bought our cars because they thought they were the safest. But now we have given them cause for grave concern. I can’t begin to express my remorse.”

“Toyota has become too big and distant from its customers,” he added.

Weeks after the big apology, Inada said that Toyota learned from its mistakes and is confident that it is now “doing the right thing for our customers.”

Toyota’s desire to recover its reputation for quality and safety led to its decision to install a brake override system in all Toyota and Lexus vehicles by 2011. This system, which likely could have prevented the fatal acceleration incidents, is standard in most German vehicles and in Chryslers. Toyota is already installing the new brake override system in Toyota Camry and Lexus ES 350 models.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Toyota says it mishandled unintended acceleration problem

According to a report by the Detroit Free Press, auto manufacturers recalled 15.2 million vehicles in 2009, a 56 percent leap over the 8.6 million of cars recalled in 2008.

Toyota vehicles represent more than 31 percent of all the vehicles recalled in 2009. About 88 percent of all recalled Toyota vehicles were recalled because of their potential to accelerate unintentionally. Eight other Toyota recalls involved a range of defects from missing safety labels to corrosion problems on the Tundra pickup frame.

Toyota spokesman Celeste Migliore called Toyota’s ranking “unfortunate” and “one Toyota doesn’t wish to have.”

“The safety of our owners and the public remain our utmost concern, and Toyota has and will take appropriate measures to correct any defect it identifies,” Migloiore told the Free Press.

Tailing Toyota on the list is Ford, which recalled more than 4.5 million cars and trucks over faulty cruise control switches that are prone to catch fire. Ford announced 8 recalls in 2009.

Third on the list is General Motors, which recalled 2.3 million vehicles and had the widest range of defects. GM announced 17 recalls in 2009.

“We are catching most problems before they affect large numbers of customers,” GM spokesman Alan Adler told the Free Press. “The important thing is to eliminate these issues and improve reliability in the view of the people who purchase our vehicles.”

Kudos to GM for acknowledging and addressing vehicle problems early. Ignoring consumer complaints or blaming the problem on something else, an approach Toyota seems to have taken for years in handling its sudden acceleration reports, ends up costing people their lives.

According to the Free Press, the U.S. had 117 auto recalls in 2009. Of those, “21 were spurred by government regulators reviewing the same data that automakers receive.”

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Toyota recalls the most vehicles for first time ever

Since the recall was first announced, Toyota has focused on floor mats as the likely culprit. In my Tacoma, the floor mat is secured in the back by two pivoting hooks. You turn the hooks to align with the holes in the mat  and then place the mat over the hooks, adjusting it as necessary. I only remove the floor mat when I clean the vehicle thoroughly, about every other month. I remember I forgot to secure the floor mat once, but I didn’t have any problems with it sliding forward and interfering with the gas and brake pedals.

Curious about my truck’s potential to accelerate unexpectedly, I unfastened the driver’s side mat while the truck was parked and slid it forward to see how it could interfere with the accelerator pedal. I couldn’t visualize this problem occurring in my particular vehicle. I don’t see how the standard floor mat in my truck could jam the gas pedal in an open position, either by catching a part of it or coming to rest on top of it. It’s easier to imagine the problem with a heavier mat, like an optional all-weather floor mat or some rubber that wasn’t designed for the Tacoma specifically.

Still, though, it’s hard to picture the floor mat being responsible for causing some vehicles to speed and crash so violently. I know times are tough for Toyota, but let’s hope the company is 100% certain that floor mats caused all of the unintended acceleration incidents and that fixing the floor mats will prevent sudden acceleration accidents from happening again.

Some Toyota drivers, after all, have reported unintended acceleration events in cars without driver’s side floor mats, and others question why the problem ceases after turning the engine off without repositioning the mat. Whatever the problem, the consequences have been tragic when drivers weren’t able to regain control of the vehicle.

Smart pedal technology seems like it would be a panacea for whatever is causing the unintended acceleration problem, be it floor mats in one model or software problems in another. A smart pedal would disengage the accelerator if it were pressed concurrently with the brakes.

It’s also standard technology in most German vehicles and Chryslers. But the thought of retrofitting 3.8 million vehicles with it could have Toyota scrambling for a less expensive fix.

In the recall announcement, Toyota says that it is “currently developing a campaign remedy and will notify you when it is ready.”

Read the Toyota recall letter.

Other sources: Consumer Affairs

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Toyota mails recall announcements, but no fix yet

Toyota and Lexus owners have lodged more than 2,000 complaints of sudden and unintended acceleration against Toyota, according to the lawsuit. Toyota’s unintended acceleration problem has caused numerous accidents, resulting in 16 deaths and 243 injuries, the suit alleges.

The plaintiffs, Seong Bae Choi and Chris Chan Park of Los Angeles, filed their lawsuit as a class action, seeking to represent the owners of all Toyota and Lexus models affected by the unintended acceleration problem and included in Toyota’s latest recall.

According to the lawsuit, Toyota “failed to incorporate failsafe measures” that allow drivers to maintain control of the vehicles in an unintended acceleration situation. The plaintiffs allege that the acceleration problem is the result of faulty electronics.

In the affected cars, acceleration is regulated by an electronic throttle control system called the ETCS-i.

The plaintiffs also claim that Toyota could have implemented smart pedal technology that would “automatically reduce the engine to idle when the brakes are being applied while the throttle is an open position.” Such technology is standard in almost all German-made cars and Chryslers.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration hasn’t adopted a very clear stance on the issue. The agency says that it hasn’t found sufficient evidence of electronic defects in the cars it has analyzed, but that it has found evidence that floor mats could jam the accelerator pedals. Yet when it denied a request to further investigate Lexus ES models, the agency said that doing so did not “constitute a finding by the NHTSA that a safety-related defect does not exist.”

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › California men file sudden acceleration lawsuit against Toyota

Since the NHTSA first announced the recall on September 29, there has been a lot of conflicting information and confusion about the cause and solution of unintended acceleration in the recalled vehicles.

Early media reports claimed that floor mats caused the problem because they could slide forward and jam the accelerator pedal. Later reports suggested that Toyota would not issue a floor mat recall but instead would implement a “smart pedal” solution that would allow the brakes to disengage the accelerator when both pedals were simultaneously used. Subsequent reports indicated that the massive recall – the largest ever for Toyota – would indeed focus on the floor mat design only.

According to the NHTSA, in a press release published earlier this week, Toyota “inaccurately stated NHTSA had reached a conclusion ‘that no defect exists in vehicles in which the driver’s floor mat is compatible with the vehicle and properly secured.’”

The NHTSA said that it simply told consumers to remove the driver’s side floor mats in all affected vehicles as an “interim measure” to help prevent unintended acceleration from occurring.

“This remedy does not correct the underlying defect in the vehicles involving the potential for entrapment of the accelerator by floor mats, which is related to accelerator and floor pan design,” the NHTSA said, adding that it continues to work with Toyota to “fix this very dangerous problem.”

“This matter is not closed until Toyota has effectively addressed the defect by providing a suitable vehicle based solution,” the NHTSA warned.

Owners of the recalled Toyota and Lexus models are being notified of the recall by first-class mail. Once a solution is developed, consumers will be told in a second mailing the procedure for getting their vehicles fixed.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Toyota issued misleading and inaccurate recall info, NHTSA says

Toyota, however, is reportedly considering implementing this technology as a solution to the acceleration problems in up to 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles. Toyota announced last month that it would soon issue a vehicle recall over concerns that the driver’s side floor mats can slide forward and jam the accelerator pedal in full open position.

Toyota’s recall announcement followed the highly publicized deaths of Mark Saylor and his family members, who were riding in a Lexus ES 350 that sped out of control last August. The incident ended in a fiery crash, claiming the lives of everyone onboard and prompting a dramatic public apology from Toyota Motor Corp.’s president Akio Toyoda, who said his company was “grasping for salvation.”

In a New York Times report, BMW spokesman Thomas Plucinsky said that the brake pedal has taken precedence over the gas pedal in all of its cars beginning with the 2005 models. Unintended acceleration shepherded the design of BMW’s smart pedal, which tells the car’s electronic circuitry to ignore the gas pedal when the brake pedal is pressed simultaneously.

Brian Lyons, a spokesman for Toyota, told the New York Times that the company was considering the implementation of smart pedals rather than a redesign of the floor mats as a solution to the unintended acceleration problem.

Audi, Volkswagen, and Chrysler are other car manufacturers that have standardized a similar safety feature in all vehicles.

A Honda spokesman told the New York Times that his company continues to “accept application of the accelerator and brake pedals as representing the driver’s intention.” It’s a position still held by General Motors, Ford, Acura, Nissan and Hyundai.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Toyota may use “smart pedal” to fix unintended accleration problem

According to the NHTSA, the defective tires have an insufficient tread base gauge, which can cause vibration and groove cracking. Consumers who continue to drive with the tires may notice tread separation and distortion, which can lead to tire failure and cause the driver to lose control of the vehicle.

Bridgestone is currently notifying its customers of the recall by mail. The company will replace, mount, and balance the defective tires free of charge. Anyone who suspects they own one or more of the defective tires should contact Bridgestone by calling 1-800-465-1904. Information about the tires from Bridgestone is available by going to the company’s website.

In October of last year, the federal government and Bridgestone announced a safety recall of 160,000 Firestone tires because of potential hazards also stemming from insufficient tread base gauge.

In 2000, Bridgestone issued the largest tire recall in history – a multi-billion-dollar recall of 6.5 million Firestone Wilderness AT tires mounted primarily on Ford Explorers, a vehicle that is prone to roll over after a tire blowout. The next day, Ford announced a recall of 13 million more defective Firestone tires that Bridgestone refused to recall.

The defective Firestone tires recalled in 2000 led to 174 deaths and at least 700 injuries, many of which were catastrophic.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Bridgestone recalls thousands of defective Firestone tires

The new safety requirement comes after a series of fatal bus crashes that received national publicity. After analyzing the events surrounding a 2008 Utah bus rollover in which nine people died and 43 were injured, the NTSB concluded that federal regulations don’t offer enough protection to bus passengers. The American Association for Justice (AAJ) subsequently responded to the report by calling for a close review – and a possible revision – of federal transportation safety regulations proposed during the Bush Administration and currently pending.

Safety advocates, including the NTSB and the AAJ, reproached the NHTSA for acting too slowly in making much needed safety improvements on commercial buses. “The finding from the NTSB shows how the public is endangered when federal agencies drag their feet,” said Gerie Voss, the AAJ Director of Regulatory Affairs. “The Obama Administration must make updating transportation safety standards a priority.”

According to Ron Medford, the NHTSA’s acting administrator, commercial bus safety has become one of the agency’s top priorities. “I think it is true that the NHTSA was slow to act,” he told the Detroit News.

Although nearly as many Americans travel on commercial buses as they do airplanes, buses are the least regulated motor vehicles under the NHTSA’s jurisdiction.

The NTSB has called for better safety regulations of commercial buses since 1999. Over the last ten years, the agency has investigated 33 bus accidents involving the ejection of more than 250 passengers unrestrained by seat belts. While motor coaches provide one of the safest forms of travel, many of the fatalities that have occurred in bus accidents could have been prevented with fairly simple regulations, such as the use of seat belts, stronger roofs and windows, and better fire proofing and emergency exits.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Seat belts on commercial buses, a new NHTSA regulation

Company documents showed that crash testing revealed that although the Pinto’s gas tank was positioned according to industry standards at the time, in the Pinto it was situated in such a way that studs protruding from the rear axle would puncture the gas tank in the event of a crash. Test results showed that fuel leaks were common in the Pinto in any of the other four basic crash types – frontal, side, rear and rollover. In particular, more than one quarter of all rear impacts produced a fuel leak that could result in a fire and a fatality. Out of 11 test crashes, only three cars survived, and they had the fuel tanks modified prior to testing.

Ford had a decision to make. Its car was in compliance with industry standards of the time, so it was not breaking any laws. But its own research had proved the car was unsafe, and even deadly.

The manufacturer implemented a now-notorious “cost-benefit analysis,” estimating a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved figure of $200,000 “cost to society” for each estimated fatality, versus an estimated $11 per vehicle production cost to modify the design and location of the fuel tank. Figures showed the repairs for a projected 11 million cars and 1.5 million light trucks that also featured the faulty tank design would cost the company $137 million.

Ford estimated “benefits” resulting from design modification would include the prevention of 180 burn deaths, 180 serious burn injuries and 2,100 burned vehicles, at a savings of $200,000 per death, $67,000 per serious injury and $700 per injury. Total benefit was estimated at $49.5 million.

Because the estimated cost of repairs was about 2.5 times the estimate of the resulting benefits, Ford chose to do nothing, putting its profits above the value of human life.

This is not the first time such cold-blooded calculations have been revealed in the auto manufacturing industry. Last year, we brought you a very similar story that revealed how automobile manufacturer General Motors, in 1973, determined the cost of repairing its automobile design to prevent fuel-fed fires would cost more than compensating families who lost loved ones in a crash. As a result, they decided not to make fundamental changes to the location of the fuel tanks in their cars to protect consumers, choosing instead to gamble on the likelihood of fire deaths from crashes.

The memo, dubbed the Ivey Memo for its author, engineer Edward C. Ivey, was buried by GM until 1998, when it finally came to light during a Florida trial involving two children who burned to death when the station wagon in which they were riding caught fire after a crash.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Ford memo: the smoking gun

Automobile manufacturers wear their top IIHS rating as a badge of honor, and rightfully so. What auto manufacturer wouldn’t be proud that one of its popular models exceeded government ratings for roof crush strength by up to two and a half times?

The IIHS recently put 12 small sport utility vehicles to the test using its new and improved roof crush standards. Topping the list are the Volkswagen Tiguan, Subaru Forester, Honda Element, and Jeep Patriot. All received the highest IIHS rating “Good.”

Next on the list and receiving the “Acceptable” grade were the Suzuki Grand Vitara, Chevrolet Equinox, Toyota Rav4, Nissan Rogue, and Mitsubishi Outlander.

Car manufacturers who receive low IIHS rankings also receive a little more incentive to improve their vehicle’s safety features. Low safety ratings amount to bad advertising, and that affects the bottom line. IIHS safety rankings of “marginal” (Honda CR-V and Ford Escape) and “poor” (Kia Sportage) mean that those vehicles won’t make it onto any safety minded car shopper’s short list.

IIHS studies have shown that auto roofs have been getting stronger over the past few years, a trend that the institute attributes partly to the structural improvements auto companies have made while pursuing better IIHS front and side crash test results. The institute says that strong front and side support “help prevent intrusion in [rollover] crashes and also help hold up the roof.”

“It’s not surprising that Volkswagen and Subaru earn good ratings in our new roof test because these automakers were among the first to ace our front and side tests,” IIHS President Adrian Lund said.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › IIHS puts first 12 vehicles through new roof crush rating system

55-year-old Charla Nash of Stamford, Conn. suffered extensive debilitating injuries to her face and hands when her friend’s chimp attacked her unexpectedly. Nash had arrived at her friend’s house to help her lure the chimp back inside the house when she was attacked outside of the house.

Nash required more than seven hours of surgery by four teams of doctors. She remains in critical condition at Cleveland Clinic, where surgeons performed the first facial transplant in the US just a couple months ago. Her doctors said it was too early to tell whether Nash would need a face transplant.

One Connecticut attorney told the Insurance Journal that Sandra Herold, the owner of the 14-year-old chimp, would probably face a slam-dunk lawsuit. “The reasonableness of having a 200-pound wild animal is just nonexistent. It’s not unforeseeable that such an animal could do what this animal has done,” he said.

An attorney representing Nash and her family said it was too early to determine what legal action might be taken.

Fordham law professor Jim Cohen predicted there would be a successful lawsuit against Herold if she has assets. The woman owns a tow truck company and lives in the upscale North Stamford community.

Cohen said that Herold knew the chimpanzee was becoming unstable. “She was on notice that this chimpanzee was over the course of time getting crankier and crankier, getting less controllable and she didn’t do anything about it,” he told the Insurance Journal.

Since the incident, two people have come forward saying that Travis bit them. Police, however, said they have no complaints about the primate on record except for an incident in 2003 in which the chimp escaped from a vehicle and ran around downtown Stamford for two hours.

Cohen said that Herold could face criminal charges but he doesn’t think she ought to. Connecticut state law permitted Herold to keep the chimp as a pet, therefore she broke no laws.

“It’s a little hard for me to see how they could charge her in good faith after they allowed this to continue,” Cohen old the Insurance Journal. “It seems to me the state was complicit in permitting her to keep the chimp and not in any way following up on it.’”

One attorney told the Insurance Journal that Nash had a potentially “viable claim” against the State of Connecticut. “The state should have known that chimpanzees can become violent as they mature,” he told the Insurance Journal.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Chimp owner and state of Connecticut may be held liable for attack

Relatives of a man killed in a Ford Explorer accident in November 2005 are suing both Ford Motor Company and Bridgestone/Firestone as well as the driver of the Explorer, Ana Herrera.

Ricardo Garcia died of injuries he sustained when the 1998 Explorer he was a passenger in rolled over multiple times. The driver, Ana Herrera, lost control of the vehicle on an Arkansas road. Herrera’s Explorer rolled several times when she attempted to return the vehicle to the road.

The suit, which Garcia’s relatives filed in the Miller County Circuit Court of Arkansas, blames the accident on the negligence of the driver, but says that she could have regained control of the Explorer if it had been properly designed.

Due to the SUV’s narrow track width and high center of gravity, the Explorer has “a propensity to roll over rather than slide out in an emergency situation,” court records state.

Bridgestone/Firestone is also partially responsible for the accident, according to the suit, because it complied with Ford’s request for lighter, less durable tires for its Explorers. The tires often resulted in dangerous tread separations.

The plaintiffs allege that Ford was aware of design flaws in its Explorers, including “problems with control, stability, roof crush, and occupant restraints,” but failed to make improvements because of expense.

The plaintiffs seek survival damages and have asked the court to impose punitive damages on the defendants for gross negligence as well.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Ford among defendants in new Explorer rollover case

A NHTSA study on Firestone ATX/Wilderness tire defects found that age was a definitive factor in failure, particularly in high-temperature environments that cause tire rubber to deteriorate more quickly. A 2003 presentation showed that a tire’s age contributes to failure and consequently, older tires were more likely to fail than newer tires. NHTSA’s Research and Report to Congress on Tire Aging revealed that 77 percent of insurance claims related to failing tires arose from states with hot climates, and of these claims 84 percent involved tires more than six years old.

Safety Research and Strategies (SRS) a consumer advocacy group that has urged the NHTSA to inform the public about risks of aging tires, cites 159 incidents of tread and belt separations of tires more than six years old in loss-of-control accidents. These 159 incidents caused 128 fatalities and 168 injuries according to SRS.

Despite these statistics, the average consumer-and sometimes even qualified tire technicians-remained unaware of the hazards of aging tires in the absence of guidelines and information. Tire industry documents produced in litigation show that tire manufactures know that tires have a shelf life. The natural rubber in tires deteriorates over time when it undergoes oxidation and ozonation. Three years after manufacture, tires become less safe and more prone to accident causing failure.

Any consumer armed with the right information can determine the age of a vehicle’s tires by checking the Department of Transportation code on the tire sidewall. The date and year of the tire’s manufacture are revealed by the last four digits of this number. Importantly, most car and tire manufacturers don’t tell customers how to find this information, or even why this information is important. As a result, many consumers drive automobiles and trucks with tires more than six years old and don’t know it. Even those who are aware of the age of their tires may not have been educated on the potential hazards of old tires.

After studies in the 1980s connected tire failure to age, some German and Japanese car manufacturers embedded warnings deep in their literature. Following the Firestone debacle, some other companies followed suit. However, many other automakers remained close-lipped.

On the heels of the Firestone catastrophe, two acts required NHTSA to further examine the issue of tire aging. The first was the Tire Recall Enforcement, Accountability and Documentation, (TREAD) Act, followed by provision in the Safe, Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act, which required the NHTSA to study tire aging and potential regulatory testing, and to report back to Congress by August 2007.

After the Firestone recalls, Ford Motor Company recruited a polymer chemist named Dr. John Baldwin to examine the cause of the Firestone tire issue, and to look at the science behind tire aging. Baldwin’s research has played a role in understanding how tire’s age, and what happens when they do. Baldwin came up with a lab test that replicated oxidative aging and showed its damaging effect on tires, resulting in Ford recommending that tires be replaced after 6 years.

With the focus on tire safety and issues becoming more public, several American tire manufacturers decided to issue warnings as well. In 2005, Bridgestone-Firestone publicly noted that all tires should be removed after ten years, regardless of condition. Companies such as Continental, Cooper, and Michelin jumped on the bandwagon in 2006 with similar warnings.

Despite the technical findings by NHTSA, SRS, and Ford, and the warnings initiated by some tire and automobile manufacturers, many attorneys and consumer advocacy groups, including SRS, felt that a more formal and public warning to consumers was needed, and called upon the NHTSA to issue its first consumer advisory addressing the dangers of ages tires. Recent investigative segments on tire aging by NBC’s Today Show and ABC’s 20/20, combined with a June 4 Congressional hearing that gave Congress and opportunity to ask NHTSA how it planned to handle the issue of tire aging, pressured NHTSA to answer demands. The consumer advisory was sent out by NHTSA a day before the Congressional hearing.

While many attorneys and consumer advocacy groups don’t feel the consumer warning is quite enough, most agree it’s a start. The advisory warns people to check all of their tires-including their spare-for specific signs of wear, including under-inflation and worn treads. The advisory also warns consumers about the potential hazards of driving worn or improperly inflated tires in hot climates, which can lead to tread separations, crashes and rollovers.

The consumer advisory warning stops short of defining specific age limits of tires, despite a myriad of studies that the six-year mark is a line of demarcation. Instead, the warning suggests consumers refer to the vehicle and/or tire manufacture’s age recommendations. The advisory does note that many manufacturers suggest that tires be replaced between six and ten years, but leaves the definitive suggestions in the hands of tire and vehicle manufacturers.

While more steps can be taken to ensure that consumers are better protected from the potential hazards associated with tire aging, this latest step by the NHTSA will most certainly cut down on the number of individuals who are needlessly killed or injured because they are unknowingly driving vehicles with old, dangerous tires. However, because the tire industry still refuses to give consumers and retailers sufficient information to know about the danger and take preventative measures, needless accidents due to old fires failing will continue to happen.

SOURCE:Tire Retirement, by Richard Newson

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Tire Retirement

NHTSA expressed concerns that only 5 million of the 12 million vehicles involved in the recall have been repaired. A similar warning was issued in February but officials said the response was minimal, CNNMoney reported.

NHTSA has received nearly 60 complaints of fires that occurred in the affected vehicles. The organization currently is investigating a similar problem in Ford Windstar vans; NHTSA has received more than 130 complaints of alleged fires in those vehicles, according to the news story.

Ford Motor Company’s Website states: “Our investigation has found that if brake fluid leaks through the speed control deactivation system into the speed control system electrical components, those components may corrode. Together with other conditions, this could lead to overheating, and possibly, a fire at the switch.”

For a full list of Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles involved in the recall, contact Ford Motor Company.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Defective switch can cause auto fire

The investigation revealing the valve stem defects resulted from a lawsuit filed by the widow of Robert Monk, of Orlando, Fla., who was killed last November when the right rear tire of his 1998 Ford Explorer failed, causing a rollover crash, Lawyers USA reports. Although the tires on Monk’s vehicle had been inspected two months prior to the accident, a large strip of the tire came off while he was driving on the highway, according to his attorney. This is a result of underinflation, which allows the metal rim of the tire to dig into the rubber.

Dill Air Control Products of Oxford, N.C., the U.S. distributor of the valve stems, notified the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the potential problem as a result of the Florida lawsuit. In May, the company issued an advisory to tire retailers about problems with surface cracks on the outside of the valve stem near the rim hole, and asked retailers to return all valve stems manufactured in 2006 and to inspect valve stems installed from September 2006 through June 2007.

Because of the large number of valve stems in circulation, they could be on any number of automobiles and are extremely difficult to track, according to the Lawyers USA report.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Deadly crash spurs tire valve recall

WASHINGTON, May 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Kevin Moody, a grieving father who lost his son Tyler on January 16, 2003 due to injuries from ‘roof crush‘ has that day forever etched in his memory: “Five and a half years ago, my son, Tyler, was killed in a single vehicle rollover accident in his 1995 Ford Explorer which slid off the road and rolled over at a speed of only 40 miles an hour, into a flat grassy field. The weak roof in his Ford Explorer collapsed and crushed him to death.” Since Tyler Moody’s death, Kevin Moody has been on a mission to get the roof strength standard, FMVSS 216, upgraded and convince Congress to pass new legislation regulating and mandating a new and adequate roof strength standard beyond what NHTSA, (National Highway Transportation Safety Administration) has proposed.

Last September 6, on what would have been Tyler’s 23rd birthday, Oklahoma Senator (Dr.) Tom Coburn received a Vaultz box hand-delivered by Kevin Moody and Paula Lawlor, founder of the non-profit, http://www.PeopleSafeInRollovers.org. The box contained a personalized letter with Tyler’s photo engraved in marble; Deadly By Design by Paula Lawlor and crashworthiness attorney Todd Tracy; and a DVD player and DVD video drop test comparison showing the effect of ‘roof crush’ on a production versus a reinforced roof. As a result of receiving these powerful materials, both Moody and Lawlor were contacted by Senator (Dr.) Tom Coburn’s office.

After several meetings with Moody, Senator Coburn prompted Senator Mark Pryor, Chairman, U.S. Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Automotive Safety, to call a Senate Hearing on the role of ‘roof crush’ in automobile rollover accidents.

The Senate Hearing on ‘roof crush’ is scheduled for Wednesday, June 4th, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. in room 253, Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. The Hearing is open to the public and to the news media.

Scheduled to testify are one representative each from NHTSA; Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers; Advocates for Highway Safety; Insurance Institute for Highway Safety; Public Citizen; and quadriplegic ‘roof crush’ victim, Dr. David Garcia.

It is too late for my son, said Moody, “but if we don’t act quickly and decisively, another 10,000 this year will meet the same fate as my son.”

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › Grief Spurs Senate

According to the report, Pfizer’s smoking-cessation drug Chantix came in for a bit more trouble as a research group cited reports of physical side effects associated with the drug. The FAA, which reviewed the report, barred pilots and air traffic controllers from taking the drug, the WSJ reports.

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices examined adverse-event reports turned into the FDA in the fourth quarter of last year, and found 988 serious health problems reported in association with Chantix use, including seizures and heart trouble.

Pfizer told the WSJ the Institute’s findings are consistent with the drug’s label, which lists many of the events cited in the Institute’s report as “infrequent” or “rare,” and aren’t unusual given that more than five million Americans have taken the medicine.

Up to this point, Chantix has been under scrutiny primarily for potential psychiatric trouble, with reports of agitation and suicidal thinking in some patients. But the drug has remained popular, with sales of $277 million in the first quarter of this year, making it a bright spot for the company.

But Chantix sales growth has slowed lately due to the psychiatric concerns, and the Institute’s report prompted Sanford Bernstein analyst Timothy Anderson to cut his 2012 forecast for the drug’s sales to $700 million from $1.6 billion.

SOURCE: Personal Injury Attorneys › FAA Bans Chantix