Bad Accident, Benz Deffective?

Hey everyone I just finished my aunts benz this past weekend and was ready to take delivery of my cousins new 09 C350 sport this weekend. Well I get a call yesterday morning from my aunt asking when she can have her car back because my cousin had an accident while driving to work and was in the hospital. I quickly left work to finish the car and deliver it (she lives about 40 mins away) as she said after i left that there was no rush as she had gotten a ride home. Any ways apparently something my cousin had been taken had some weird side effect and made her black out while driving resulting in her hitting a electric post head on. Needless to say the car's front end is destroyed and my cousin had to have surgery for a broken nose and thankfully only that. When I delivered the car later yesterday I was surprised to find her home (shes a trooper) and she told me that she had blacked out but she remembered hitting the pole (scary), and later found out her airbag didn't go off and her seatbelt didnt lock. After I heard this i had a few words for the people who put that car together. Also my cousin had told me she had to have the audio system replaced already because it was making weird static. Anyways shes worried she was sold a defective benz.

Well my reason for posting this is to see if anyone is maybe a lawyer or has had a similar situation and I basically want to know what can be done to help her. She hasn't gotten the info from the insurance and i believe they want to fix it at some cheap shop. Both my cousin and I want it to be totaled so she can get a new one seeing as this one clearly wasnt made right. So Im wondering if the insurance decides they want fix it, can she take the "fixed" car to the benz dealership and demand a new car seeing as Ive seen cars' airbags go off from closing the door hard and she hit a pole head on and not a single airbag went off. And if it is declared total and she gets a new one is there any legal action she can take against Daimler Chrysler -Mercedes Benz or would it be a waste of time?

 

I would without a doubt get in contact with a lawyer about this. I would also not have the car repaired so that if legal action is taken against the manufacturer, it can be proven the car was defective, or least have the body shop document the damage and lack of airbag deployment. Glad your cousin is ok though.

 

didn't you just say, "she had a side effect"? If that is medication that makes you dizzy, you shouldn't be driving, and I think filing a case is worthless...However I would check the car out very carefully just in case...

 

yeh my mistake, but the medication i believe wasn't supposed to make her black out, its just a possibility, the doctors are still trying to figure out what exactly caused her to black out (Im only saying what I was told, I'm no doctor). Regardless of whether she was at fault or not I don't see why the airbags wouldn't have gone off and the seatbelt didnt lock. If this would have worked she wouldnt have broken her nose and had to have surgery. You pay $40k and up for this car and you would expect more safety :/

 

The new smart airbags do not always deploy. Depending on the angle of impact, and other inputs the system may think that deploying the airbag will cause more harm then good. Speed will also play a role. I was in a minor crash were the airbag did go off and it was a slow impact, this was in 1st gen airbags, it ended up causing more harm than good as it was expensive to fix and also caused friction burns on my right arm from the airbag. So, I am not saying that nothing could go wrong, but with the fail safe and system backups I am pretty sure that the airbags preformed as they were intended and you can see that because you cuz only had a minor injury. Sometimes airbags will cause more harm than the actual accident, which was the issue with the 1st generation airbags.

Anyways, I hope she recovers well and they figure out what caused the blackout and get the car fixed as well.

 

Usually that's when insurance company totals the car - as soon as airbags deploy...otherwise they try to fix it...

 

Wow hitting a pole and still trying to fix the car? Thats brutal...hope it all works out and glad your cousin is ok. I know my truck has a soft crumple zone so really any front end impact will total it for sure.

 

I'd definitely contact a lawyer about this to see if you have a case. Even if the accident was caused by your cousin's condition and they were not supposed to be driving, the car should have provided that protection regardless. I would look into it for sure. And +1 on what Billy said, don't repair the car, that will be crucial in winning your case if you choose to pursue it.

Glad to hear your cousin made it out alright.

 

First, I'm glad to hear your cousin's OK. Go research the Stella awards..you'll see an actual case where a lady bought an RV and was driving it alone down a road and put on the cruise control and left the wheel to go make herself a sandwich. Of course the RV crashed and she SUCCESSFULLY sued the RV company. My point here is even if your cousin had taken medication, it is irrelevant as to how the car was supposed to perform in a collision. She could have deliberately driven into the pole...if the air bag should have gone off then she'd have a suit.
Now, on to the air bag. The newer cars employ so-called smart bags that inflate either partially or fully or not at all depending on several factors that are recorded on the car's "black box". Primarily, the sensors look at PDOF (Principle direction of force). Without looking up my old Collision REconstruction manuals directly, I recall that the force must be concentrated in about a 15 degree offset from dead centre, straight on. That is to say a side impact will not trigger the front air bags whereas it may the side impact bags. The 2nd factor the sensors measure is the change in velocity over the change in time. It is this ratio that will also trigger the deployment of the bags. Again, the car's "black box" records this info and it will be there right now. What you want to do is seize the box and get it downloaded and reviewed by a collision reconstructionist who is qualified to do so and has the machinery. He can do it without removing it as well. This is the key to your case. There will be set parameters to where the bags are supposed to deploy. If the paramters were met and no deployment happened, you'd have a case. If the collision did NOT fall within the FACTORY-SET parameters, you will not have a case. The factory is who sets the parameters for the sensors to trigger the deployment. NHTSA has nothing to do with the parameters. It's up to the manufacturers to ensure their vehicles meet the crash standards set by NHTSA. Good luck.

 

thanks guys for the useful posts, I'm forwarding this to my cousin now and hopefully something can be done before her insurance tries to fix it.

 

Sorry to here about the accident, glad she's o.k.:applause2:

Yea, she can find an ambulance chaser to sue. She will be suing her on insurance company though

As far as the Air-Bags....ppl put alot of false security in this things. I might have missed the year of Benz, but if its 10yrs or older. the sensors have expired(look in door jam/owners manuel)

Hope it all works out. :chips:

 

excellent information richy!

 

Thanks, and the car is 2009 model. theres no way the sensors are expired lol.

Thanks for your amazing info :worship2:

 

My pleasure...I did collision reconstruction at Windsor Police for several years. I no longer do it but I have had many many training courses. I don't mind sharing the information.

 

Kind of off topic but in one of my Engineering classes a former student of my Prof came in who is a collision re constructionist and I was pretty amazed at the modeling that can be done and the data that is available for cars to help with reconstruction.

 

Glad to hear your cousin is ok.

Sucks about the car.
Hopefully it works out in her favor.

GL.

 

If you are interested in pursuing it as a case and a lawyer would charge for time to see if it's worth pursuing let me know and I'll contact my buddy who did these kinds of cases down in FL for a few years before moving up here.

 

thanks right now my cousin is seeing wut the insurance says and I have given her a link to this thread hopefully a case could be made for this because it really upsets me that this happened. I also dug up a recall on 05-06 C-Class cars reporting the airbags would not deploy and the seat belt would not lock. Sounds all too familiar. Looks like Mike and Joe on the assembly line had a very intense and long game of poker and didnt remember their job :/

 

More like Hans and Franz.

 

There are actually many different methods with which to recreate the scene. All are based on Physics and use Mathematical equations. There is also the relatively new method of using the info from the airbag control module (aka black box) to print out exactly what the sensors recorded 5 seconds before the collision. They are used in tandem to corroborate each other. I am a real geek for this stuff. Where else in life can you actually use a Quadratic equation? I was disappointed to leave this area...I used to get compliments from Judges when I would testify at Jury trials and I never lost a case. My enthusiasm for the topic was evident in my demeanor on the stand. Your prof was right..it is a fascinating field!!