Ways to Prevent Seatback Failures
When you buckle up, put your hands on the wheel, and drive to your designated route, you assume you are safe inside your vehicle. Unfortunately, that is not always the case.
The strength of your car’s seats plays a fundamental role in the safety of your vehicle. If you get in a car wreck, the first thing to protect you is your seat belt, but have you ever considered the strength of your seat to help prevent severe injuries in a crash?
Statistics on Seatback Failures
If you are in the front seat of your vehicle and your seat back fails during a rear-end collision, the seat back poses a dangerous risk of collapsing backward— this could lead to devastating injuries, especially if you have small children in the backseat. While seat failure can be rare, these defects have been injuring and killing people for years.
A study found that approximately 50 children have been killed every year since 2001 due to a seatback collapsing in rear-end crashes. As more consumer reports reveal the dangers of these failures, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been urged to update federal front seat safety standards to protect against seat collapse in a crash.
Although you can’t control or predict a defective seat failure, you can take safety precautions before purchasing your vehicle and before you drive to help you minimize the chances of a severe injury.
1. Keep Children In Back Seats
The Center for Injury Research and Prevention revealed that the injury risk to children significantly increased if the seat in front of them collapsed during a crash. Therefore, it is crucial to place children behind unoccupied front seats; this action can help prevent children from sustaining catastrophic injuries such as traumatic brain injuries, paralysis, spinal cord injuries, etc.
2. Research Your Vehicle Before Purchasing
Understanding the primary source of automobile defects and vehicle manufacturing may be challenging. However, it’s best to be prepared before a severe accident occurs. Before you purchase a vehicle, it’s always a good idea to check it in person and ensure that the seatback has an adequate support system, strong head restraint, and the frame is installed correctly.
3. Contact a Corpus Christi Car Seat Failure Attorney
has over two decades of experience fighting for consumers who’ve been wrongfully injured due to defective products. If you or a loved one have been harmed due to a seatback failure, you must act quickly to preserve the evidence necessary to investigate the claim before the vehicle is lost or destroyed. Contact us today at (361) 733-3003 to schedule a free case consultation.