“Safety” can get you killed – again.
Word is out that the same government-mandated airbags that had to be recalled in the tens of millions on account of their propensity to shred people’s faces – killing dozens of them, injuring hundreds – are “under investigation” – again – for the same defect.
Apparently, another 30 million cars made between 2001 and 2019 had their defective inflators replaced with new defective inflators made by the same supplier -Takata. Some never had their originally defective parts replaced. The problem this time is with the dessicant – or drying agent – used as part of the inflator, the incendiary device within the air bag assembly that uses a chemical burn to create the gas that inflates the bag in fractions of a second after an impact is detected.
The federal safety apparat that mandated all cars be fitted with dashboard (and steering wheel) Claybrook Claymores* – the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – says that “While no present safety risk has been identified further work is needed to evaluate the future risk of non-recalled dessicated inflators.”
No “present safety risk”?
Is this like “safe and effective” vaccines?
Note the present.
What NHTSA is saying – without saying it – is that the “safety risk” hasn’t materialized, yet. Or rather, been officially acknowledged, yet.
NHTSA goes on to say that “Further study is needed to assess the long-term safety”of the “dessicated inflators,” as they are styled.
Anyone up for a ride on a 737 MAX? How about a third booster shot?
The disingenuousness is striking. Clearly, there is a “safety” issue; we’re just not informed of its degree – by the federal “safety” apparat – that “studies” the problem while millions of people drive around with defective incendiary devices placed less than a foot away from their faces.
How do we know it?
Because Honda – one of the affected brands – has confirmed “multiple deaths” caused by the defective airbags and has taken the initiative to warn owners of vehicles equipped with them and encourage them to come in for the Fix – even before the federal “safety” apparat has done anything more than “study” the problem.
Practically every brand of car is affected, including Ford and GM, Subaru, BMW, Jaguar-Land Rover, Mazda, Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep, Mazda, Porsche, Tesla and Ferrari.
When the official recall comes, it will take years to complete. As in the case of the first recall, there aren’t enough dealerships to deal with a recall of 30 million vehicles in other than a first-come, first-served basis. Meanwhile, as last time, owners of the “affected” cars will probably be expected to drive around – at their risk – in cars equipped with dangerously defective incendiary devices embedded in the dashboard and steering wheel, since it is likely the federal “safety” apparat will not allow dealers to even temporarily disable the known-to-be-defective devices until they can be replaced.
Nor is it likely it will issue a temporary waiver to owners of such cars that enables them to pass “safety” state inspection with the “SRS” (air bag) warning indicator on, which would come on if the air bag circuit’s fuse were pulled, an easy and cost-free way to eliminate the risk of an adverse event until the defective components can be replaced.
Hopefully this time with non-defective replacement parts.
The fact that federal “safety” apparat will not allow even that – a temporary turning off of defective air bags that have already killed at least a few people and thus are certain to kill more people – is of a piece with the federal “health” apparat’s insistence that everyone be Jabbed, despite it being well-known that the Jabs have killed – and so will kill, again.
But the most fundamental parallel is that in both cases, this rhetorical construct called “government” – which is nothing more than a relative handful of just-people, nothing special about them – claims the right to make literal life and death choices for the rest of the people.
As the owners of livestock do.
The issue is not whether air bags – or Jabs – are “safe and effective.” Even if they were, absolutely – it would not morally justify one person forcing another person to accept them, for in that case, the person forced is the person owned because he is controlled by the other. Slavery is not less degrading because the slave is treated benevolently by his owner.
And in this case – as is always the case, since nothing is perfect in this world – we know that air bags, like Jabs, are not “safe and effective.” We know, further, that they never can be – absolutely.
Even air bags without defects can harm and kill. It is an indisputable. Because they have. Just as all vaccines have side effects, sometimes severe and even lethal. The retort that such adverse events are “rare” is stupendous in its effrontery.
Ask the person killed by an air bag he didn’t want in his car – or crippled by a vaccination he didn’t choose to take – how he feels about “rare.”
And then consider the type of person who would presume to take away each person’s rightful agency to weigh risks and benefits and make such choices and bear the consequences for themselves.
*After Joan Claybrook, the protege of Ralph Nader who headed the federal safety apparat in the ’70s and was a key pusher of government-mandated Claymore in the dashboards and steering wheels of all new cars.
. . .
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Imagine being so dumb, so vacuous, so vain….now look at the video of the woman again. Now multiply that by at least 2 billion people.
Oh, and to add, I used to warn people about this shot as it affects your DNA. I told them don’t just take my word for it…research it. Most of the time I got head bobs and I agreements, but a lot just thought I was one of them “conspiracy theorists.” Over the next year and a half, bodies will be piling in the streets, and that is no exaggeration.
Reckon they’re just trying to kill us?
Just stumbled upon this while looking up the different types of accidents Takatas caused. Dunno if anyone has the spare time to tell this blog author what a goddamn twit he is: https://www.rojakpot.com/not-disable-takata-airbags/?noamp=mobile#comments
It would probably be pretty satisfying, one could easily tear down anything remotely resembling an argument that he thought he made.. and I love how the one commenter still left the page unconvinced 😅
Guy’s got some nerve giving advice. Appealing to authority and total nonsense statistics is apparently gonna provide equal chances of saving us all from both the windshield AND Takata’s airbag-deployment-related shrapnel simultaneously.
So from what I understand weren’t most airbag charges originally Sodium Azide which was expensive, slightly toxic, but very reliable?
Then the move to greener cheaper bomb material like anfo which of course has calibration problems over decades with heat and humidity. Not so much an issue when splitting granite but moreso when exploding things 6″ in front of human faces.
Why not move back to azide? wtf?
Hi David,
I am not certain – I will look into it – but I strongly suspect it has to do with air bags having become much more complex. Deployment rate/force can be varied according to data from seat sensors and so on, to account for the severity of the impact, the stature (and proximity to the bag) of the occupant – and so on. Also, most new cars now have at least six air bags. Many have eight or more. It is crazy.
So you’re saying the government makes bad decisions?
the people of the USSR, eastern bloc, southeast Asia & China would disagree. They were all extremely happy and had plenty of technologically advanced goods to enhance their lives.
I couldn’t agree more!!!
Just ask the Native American Indians about how well the US Government treated them during treaty negotiations and the outcome of all that hoopla
With so much of what “drives” a car since the mid-2000s being “connected”, and the fact that hackers have taken over cars remotely, why couldn’t someone with less that pure motives decide to deploy your airbags?
I’m sure some parasite in the political class has considered it already.
Its particularly galling when it comes to government arrogance, in the complete inability to admit mistakes.
That’s how we end up in situations like this. They cannot admit that airbags are unsafe and should be disabled. So we drive on with this thing under our nose because even temporarily off cannot be.
It should be noted that you can be injured or killed by an airbag that isn’t “defective”.
Airbags were overwhelmingly rejected by the market when they came out in the 1970’s. Just like electric cars have been rejected for over a century. But they get shoved down our throats anyway.
This is just an example of government never backtracking on anything that’s clearly not working, or having horrible unintended consequences. Government never repeals a bad law, it always passes another one to fix it. So, what I’m expecting, is more mandatory airbags, and mandatory helmets and protective suits to protect you from the airbags.
Exactly, OP –
These people can never admit mistakes. To do so would be to undermine their determination to be regarded as gods. It is why this Sickness Regime continues to metastasize, notwithstanding the serial failures (if they aren’t deliberate, which of course would be even worse).
Airbags weren’t so much rejected by the market but that automakers learned of their inherent problem. To stop a person not wearing a seatbelt the force required is deadly to people of smaller size. To those who both wanted and could afford them I’ve found no objections to airbags. But being voluntary I wouldn’t expect to find any objection. It’s the beauty of the voluntary system, people get what they want and not what they don’t.
Because they had existed the Claybrookians and Naderites claimed a vast corporate conspiracy to not make safer cars. The idea that they were flawed never crossed their minds. Same mentality as who killed the electric car. The idea of standard practice to crush prototypes and the expense of the car meaning no buyers in production didn’t register. Never mind the tax code often forces automakers financially to crush cars like those to avoid huge taxes, fines, whathaveyou.
When the Claybrookians and Naderites sought their mandate in the 1980s it was brought to the attention of the federal government that airbags were deadly to some people when set up to save an unbelted average sized man. The government could not care less and created the unbelted male standard for airbag deployment. It wasn’t long before mandated airbags were killing people. The government has done nothing but double down since. Adding more nonsense and complexity to try and not kill people is all that happened, the standard remains.
The last big fight automakers put up was against the airbag mandate. When the government showed it was willing to kill people to virtue signal it is my guess it demoralized the good people at the automakers. Government had shown how evil it is and it just took the fight out of them.
New idea for a bumper sticker:
Safety kills.
I dig it, Publius. To the presses!
Well-said, Brent –
I’d only add: The automakers have found they can make money on airbags; not by offering them for sale but by using the government to force everyone (who wants a new car) to buy them. And not only that, as such. Air bags cost so much to replace that they “encourage” the totaling of otherwise repairable cars, nudging people to buy another new car. And there is the regulatory capture aspect as well. It is very difficult for a start-up car company to develop a “compliant” air bag-equipped car – and so they don’t. Thus leaving the “market” to the big companies that can afford it.
The SCOTUS is going to take oral argument on a challenge to Roe v Wade in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on Dec. 1. Since Roe v Wade was decided on the grounds of privacy, and personal bodily sovereignty, this could be VERY interesting. If the case is decided in favor of Roe v Wade, it should mean the end of federal vaccine mandates. If against, no more federal enforcement of abortion rights.
This could be an end around to make jab mandates legal. I would be very cautious with this case.
I have no doubt it will work out in favor of the Sociopaths In Charge, but it should be interesting anyway. I find the convolutions and legal squirming in such cases to be entertaining. Like the one used to “legalize” asset forfeiture. It’s not criminal action against the individual, its civil action against the property. Civil action being far less burdensome than criminal is also why you have to sue to get your property back.
They take the oath to protect and defend the US Constitution, and immediately start trying to figure out ways to work around it. “Use taxes” on interstate commerce, because “sales taxes” directly imposed on such commerce are unconstitutional.
What makes you think they play straight?
Not a single solitary thing. The US federal government is the largest criminal organization in the history of the species. I don’t expect it to give up that spot.
President John Kennedy smiles approvingly from somewhere in the clouds 🙂
Roe vs. Wade was about whether or not a doctor should be prosecuted for performing an abortion, not about autonomy. At least, that’s the reason it went to the supreme court. Abortion bans are not the same principle as vaccine mandates.
Close – what the SCOTUS decided the abortion issue on in Roe v. Wade was did a woman’s right to privacy “trump” (pun intended) the State’s interest in safeguarding the life of the unborn? They parsed the issue according to the three trimesters of pregnancy, which best reflected their understanding of fetology in 1973, and how it related to “viability”. And well and good (or evil), but my main problem was that in effect, it was tantamount to legislation from the bench. IMO, Roe should be overturned not on any basis of being “pro-life”, but in remanding the issue back to the several states where it belongs. While there certainly is a right to privacy, there is NOT a “Constitutional” right to an elective abortion. A state may write such a law into ITS Constitution, and in theory the US Constitution could be thus amended, though I doubt it ever will be.
Oh Christ! Please tell me that Audi is not involved!!
Eric,
Many others have praised your assessment of the subject, and your arguments for or against it. With which I concur. I would like to express my admiration of your writing skills. I read a lot. Upwards of 8 hours a day since my retirement three years ago, and quite a bit before that retirement. I often find myself picking apart writing errors, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etc. in fiction as well as non-fiction, on line and in real printed books. A thing I very rarely find in your writing. In fact, I recall none. You are a bastion of a disappearing craft. Thank you.
Absolutely! I read (and write) quite a bit. Mostly for a living on technical material.
I really enjoy Eric’s writing and love his unique style. I mean where else do you read about “palliatives” or “poltroonery”?!
Apart from good style and a great vocabulary, I really enjoy the wit and often just the right amount of snark or sarcasm!
Moreover, all of that with the libertarian message, I come back multiple times per day nearly every single day!
And few if any writing errors!
Thanks, Eure – and John!
I will try to continue to live up to such praise. And I must give credit where it is due, too – to the coffee I guzzle and my Beezy cat, whose eye-blinks of approbation keep me at my keyboard!
Eric,
I concur with these guys.
Well, your frequent use of sentence fragments would probably anger some of my past English teachers/professors, but I understand it is done for cadence and emphasis, and fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke. 😉
Seriously, I’m just joining in the choir with praising your writing here, but it’s well deserved. You also often take this collidge ejukated man to vocabulary class, which is well appreciated.
Sentence fragmentation is necessary to write in a fashion to resemble conversation, which is often quite fragmented.
This is the first site I read during my early morning coffee. Thanks to Eric and the commentators I have learned much over last two years, especially new car tech I did not keep up with. Airbags were frightening when they were first mandated and are still.
Several years ago my wife’s Grand Am was T-boned in an intersection as she turned left. Young female driving the offending car was small in stature. In court she resembled a racoon with huge bandit eyes and green yellow bruising at her jaw line after her air bag deployed. She was sitting very close to steering wheel. Concussion, micro blood clots at the least, broken face ect
How is having, essentially, an explosive device pointed at your face safe?
Hi Manse,
Air bags are – like most things – a mixed bag. In some circumstances, they might save your life. In others, an air bag could take it. This is inarguable. The balance – one way or the other – is immaterial. The fact that an air bag can hurt or even kill you is sufficient to make forcing anyone to have one a moral atrocity. Only the individual who faces the risk has the right to make the choice – freely.
The same as regards vaccines.
There was one article where Mr. Peters managed to work in both “suppurating” and “supplicant.”
That’s not easy to do. I’ve tried.
Then there’s the fact that IF your airbags deploy, your car is likely totaled. A complete dash replacement, steering wheel replacement, front seat replacement, and whatever I’m missing replacement, can total a car with other damage confined to the front bumper cover. Now that’s ecologically sound, isn’t it?
Your point is well made Eric, as usual. The state is more than likely the agency LEAST concerned with your welfare, seeking only control of that welfare.
Eric, all this crap got started in the Sixties, thanks to a collusion effort of the Insurance Mafia and the Big auto makers. They knew of the efficacy of seat belts, but pushing them posed a PR (i.e. sales issue). People didn’t LIKE wearing them, in spite of the obvious physics involved, and car makers were hesitant to imply that their cars were “unsafe”. It didn’t help that that gay boi ninny, Ralph Nader, who was wholly unsuccessful in securing a decent job at any law firm (the reason should have been OBVIOUS), put out his hit piece of a book, “Unsafe at Any Speed”. He’d found his “calling” in life alright, of being a self-appointed “expert” who could somehow gain credibility.
Meanwhile, the Insurance Mafia was doing its lobbying, not so much that the results of car accidents, i.e. deaths and/or maiming, were getting worse, as measured per mile driven, they were actually going DOWN, in no small part due to the opening of Interstate highways throughout the country. However, lawsuits were getting far more expensive, especially when many victims who’d have been “DOA” at the scene survived, but with life-threatening or maiming injuries…call it another example of a “good deed” (i.e. advances in automotive engineering) being “punished” ANYWAY. So, the seat belts were mandated, starting in the 1968 model year, and the car makers had to offer a free retrofit for the models they’d sold from 1964 to 1967. Did that REALLY hurt them? No, if anything, it hurt the import makes MORE, as it was yet another thing they had to add to crack the “Yankee” market, so naturally the “Big Four” were willing to pony up the tooling, feature, and retrofit costs, the “Gubmint”, especially the LBJ Administration, appeared to be “doing something” to promote S-A-A-A-A-F-T-E-E-E-E, and the Insurance Mafia, over time, lowered otherwise projected benefit payments. It’d “worked”…UNTIL it was found that so many folks WOULDN’T put on the damned things, then there was the “air bag” mandates, and the automatic seat-belt mandates (remember those crappy things in the early and mid-90s), and when THOSE didn’t get the “compliance” the PTB desired, then, in CA (of course) started the seat-belt laws, which were “slud in” (think of the late Dizzy Dean for that term) as a “secondary” enforcement (meaning an officer didn’t have probable cause to pull a motorist over if seen not wearing the belt), and when THAT didn’t satisfy the control freaks, then it became an “ordinary” moving violation, which, of course, if a “copper” wanted to be a complete, LYING jerk about, he’d say he “saw” you not wearing yours, in order to write a bogus ticket or “investigate further” for what else he could make of the encounter. Sheesh.
These purported “Jab” mandates are no different. Expect soon that Xiden will mandate them to board a passenger aircraft, or renew a driver’s license, or even CROSS STATE LINES. I.E. leave the confines of the new-fangled “Berlin Wall” by leaving your home state, un-Jabbed, and immediately you’re a Federal FELON and FUGITIVE. Let alone that the next proposal is to DENY Veterans and military retirees their pensions and VA benefits, which they’ve well EARNED, if they don’t “submit”.
Now imagine this as another tool of the police state. That the “safteeeey devices” can be activated by hut hut hut goons who don’t like something you’ve done. how does that saying thing go? Never ascribe to malice that which can be chalked up to incompetence? Sure is a lot of incompetence going around
We are viewed statistically.
Remember when Mother Jones and other media decided that the Ford was evil for doing a calculation that put a value on a human life? What the media and the fight club telephone game version and so on never ever mention is that the value of a human life was assigned by the same institution that required the calculation be made. The US Federal Government.
“If it only saves one life” only refers to when government is grabbing more power over our lives. When the government standards, mandates, approved whatevers, kill people well then it is a rare event you shouldn’t worry about. And if you’re concerned about it then you’re a nutter. Meanwhile they tell us to be concerned about other rare things to grab power over us.
Here take a non-zero risk for the upside of the mitigation of some other risk. It’s risk trading at best. What if I am comfortable with the risk as is and not the one the government demands I take? What if the former is known and I already know how to reduce it but the second is unknown and out of my power? Doesn’t matter. Dear Leader John Gill has decided.
Whats worse is we are dealing with risks that children were taught to deal with in the 1970s and trading them off for the unknown risks imposed on us by technocrats.
The “John Gill” comparison to our Phony POTUS is apropos, BrentP. Now to figure out who’s playing the role of “Melakon”.
We put a price on life every day, and justifiably so. If it costs a million dollars to save one life, or a million dollars to save a thousand lives, sucks to be the One.
I wonder if we could all make a running list of the harmful stuff that the gubmint and elites have pushed on us. A few come to mind in addition to the vax and airbags:
-Cars with so many blind spots a camera is now required
-The food pyramid
-Endless debasement of money
-Ethanol in gas
-Fluoride in water
-GMO crops
-Endless war
-TSA gate rape
Gas cans without a @#$%ing vent.
This one is easily rectified. There are also businesses that sell the old style nozzle that hooks on to any of the uncle mandated cans so you can pour without having to be a contortionist.
And a vent can be installed on the “approved” cans with no vents, using a valve stem for tubeless tires. Drill a hole the appropriate size, and install it. Take out the valve, and use the stem cap to contain spillage.
Or drill a hole in the back of the handle and install a large wood screw in the hole. Works well enough-
Awomen!
I hate those things.
Taxes
Gun control
Code enforcement
Rockefeller medicine
The bomb
The war on some drugs
Public schools
Road salt
Obummercare
Affirmative action
Licensing/Registration (every kind)
Quit now before you realize you don’t have the mental capacity to encompass them all. No one does.
A lesson less seldom learned. Government is not your friend. They are sociopaths. The only time they are the least bit concerned with your welfare is when it coincides with theirs.
I have a Jeep Wrangler that has the “claymore” in it. Since I’m gonna keep it since it’s paid for, why can’t I have it removed and just leave it out? Damned Uncle and his regulations! I paid for it with no help from anyone and the safest risk is to permanently disable it or delete it entirely!
YOU DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!!
There is a way to remove / disconnect the airbag and have the SRS light off. It involves putting a resistor of the proper value in the airbag circuit. EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!!!!! DO NOT MEASURE THE AIRBAG DIRECTLY WITH A VOLT-OHM METER. DOING SO WILL ACTIVATE AND TRIGGER THE AIRBAG WITH POTENTIALLY FATAL RESULTS. The process involves placing a potentiometer in the airbag circuit, rotating it till the airbag light goes off, measuring the potentiometer’s resistance value OUT OF THE CIRCUIT, obtaining a fixed value resistor of the same value and then placing that in the circuit without reconnecting the airbag.
This is one way to preserve the SRS light operation while disabling the airbags…
Or pull the fuse, put it back in for inspection, then pull it out, again. I recall many years ago, the owners of older cars with “smog pumps”, removed them, and put them back in for inspection, then removed them. I suspect that many of the rolling cell phones won’t run without that fuse. Good luck.
I second John’s method, I also pull the fuse for the ABS braking since it almost caused me to rear-end somebody. Just have to re-install them when going for my saaaaaafety inspection and then pull them back out the minute I get back home.
It is indeed remarkable that I survived all those many years driving cars without ABS. in fact, when practically all vehicles were equipped wit them, I had to learn how to drive again. I’m here writing this now, so I assume I was successful.
While anarchyst’s method is the proper way to delete the airbags I prefer the Kable method since it disables the entire system including the pretensioning seatbelts and comms with the ECM. Pulling the fuse, or better, replacing it with a blown fuse makes the neutering of the SRS reversible. This is good for resale and potential liability reasons. In addition to this if the system is totally disabled it won’t know to shut down or limp mode the vehicle if you have to battering ram a roadblock or thicket of pink haired zombies. This may be something none of us want to ever do but the asshole class is going full steam ahead with destabilization. Do what you gotta do.
Replacing with a blown fuse is indeed a way to escape intent. “Gee, I had no idea”.
You’d have to ram the pink hairs pretty damn hard to trigger the charges. They’re deceleration/g-force based.
I’ve smashed more than a few deer with major damage but didn’t trip the bags..
Likewise, I suspect in order to trip them you probably will have a cloud of dust coming off the floor boards, unless you’re one of those who thoroughly vacuums them weekly.
You can but you have to DIY. No shop will be able to do it for you legally.
If you have certain disabilities you can (in theory) get a letter that will allow a shop to install a defeat device for you.
Which was the reason for the brevity of my excursion into being self employed. I was working construction at the time, which involves a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and the occasional broken bone, literally. The notion that some sleaze bag bureaucrat could just swoop in and confiscate 20-30% sent me into a rage. If I had remained self employed, I would have soon had an IRS agent tied to a tree, and be studiously engaged in building a fire at their feet.
‘Consider the type of person who would presume to take away each person’s rightful agency to weigh risks and benefits and make such choices and bear the consequences for themselves.’ — eric
What would Joan Clayborg look like with half her face frozen by Bell’s Palsy, like the Toronto woman in the video?
Her true self, I would say.
Get thee behind me, Satana.
When Eric said “Defective Bag”, I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the Takadas or Joan Claybrook.
Now you’ve got the wrinkled witch out shopping for a ‘dessicated inflator.’
She’d look better with a shrapnel facelift in honor of her many unsuspecting victims.
Reckon they’re just trying to kill us?
Just stumbled upon this while looking up the different types of accidents Takatas caused. Dunno if anyone has the spare time to tell this blog author what a goddamn twit he is: https://www.rojakpot.com/not-disable-takata-airbags/?noamp=mobile#comments
It would probably be pretty satisfying, one could easily tear down anything remotely resembling an argument that he thought he made.. and I love how the one commenter still left the page unconvinced 😅
Guy’s got some nerve giving advice. Appealing to authority and total nonsense statistics is apparently gonna provide equal chances of saving us all from both the windshield AND Takata’s airbag-deployment-related shrapnel simultaneously.
Dunno how this ended up as a reply to this thread, my bad, finger must’ve slipped