Los Angeles Defective Vehicle Attorneys

• Airbag defects. Airbags are designed to save the lives of occupants of cars and trucks in the event of a serious accident. However, defective airbags can cause serious injuries and even fatalities. You may have heard of the massive Takata airbag recall, which currently stands at 56 million. These airbags can explode when deployed, causing severe injury or wrongful death.
• Brake defects. Brakes are one of the most crucial safety features of our vehicles. They must function as designed in order to bring us to controlled stops, in both everyday driving and emergency situations. When brakes fail, you can do anything from skid to collide with another vehicle to crash into a stationary object. Examples of brake defects include ABS failures, fluid leaks or premature lockups.
• Child restraint defects. Because automobiles don’t come with child restraint devices, California and federal law states that children under a certain age and weight must be secured in a booster seat or other type of child passenger safety seat. When these restraints work properly, your child may be spared injury in an accident. However, if a booster seat system fails due to defects, the results can be unspeakably tragic. Find out more about car seat safety from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
• Defective door latches. The door latches of our cars and trucks are designed to keep us safely in our vehicles and keep the doors closed in the event of a collision. If these small latches that we take for granted fail, car doors can open on impact, resulting in passengers being ejected or other serious injuries. These defects can happen due to poor design or materials.
• Glass and window defects. Auto manufacturers are required to make windshields out of laminated glass, which will hold together in a collision, preventing the glass from shattering, causing lacerations and possible ejection from the vehicle. However, they’re not required to put this glass on in the side, rear and sunroof windows. Many only contain tempered glass, which can shatter.
• Seat back or headrest defects. Although seat belts are intended to keep you from being ejected from your vehicle or suffering severe injury in the event of an accident, the back of your seat is crucial to the structural integrity of your seat belt. For example, in a front- or rear-end collision, if your seat is defective and collapses, your seat belt will no longer protect you, causing far more harm, such as neck and spinal cord injuries.
• Seat belt defects. We all understand the role of seat belts in keeping us safe, and generally they do. However, a defective seat belt can be the difference between minor or life-changing injuries from an accident. Common seat belt defects include excessive spool-out, latching failure, defective design or torn webbing.
• Tire defects. Tire defect accidents are responsible for hundreds of fatalities across California and the United States every year, including blowouts and tire tread separations. Sudden tire failure not only causes accidents, but in vehicles with a high center of gravity – like SUVs, trucks and vans – this failure can cause serious rollover accidents.

These are only a few possible car, truck or motorcycle defects under product liability law. Our experienced Los Angeles attorneys can consult with you about your accident and injuries to determine who or what was responsible.