CASES IN MANAGEMENT •1

Airbags are not just a matter of air-

Lessons from Takata and Toyota recall
Welcome to Toyota Showroom

“Sir, this not just another car, but a car from the veterans, who know
the art and science of car making from the beginning”, the enthusiastic
salesman was trying to impress Mr. Airavata and his wife, who were
closely examining a Toyota car, the recently released Etios model.

“Would you mind telling us the safety features?” Airavata looked into
the eyes of the salesman.

“Yes Sir, the car has all the standard safety features like braking
systems, indicator for not wearing the seat belt, high speed warning
indicator, and most importantly, the airbags which protect the lives of
the occupants in case of a collision. In this car both the front and the
rear seat passengers are provided with the protection of the airbags”.

“Wait a minute”, Airavata interrupted, “was it not the airbag that

caused the Toyota car recall recently?”

“Yes, Sir, but the issue has been resolved now, and you can count on
the equipment provided in the car for the safety of the passengers”,
the salesman replied.

“I don’t think so”, muttered Airavata, as he had read about the Toyota
car recall because of the airbag issue. (“Everything You Need to Know
About the Takata Airbag Recall - Consumer Reports News,” 2015.)
Copyright © 2016 Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara
Research Centre for Management Studies (SDMRCMS),
SDMIMD, Mysore. This case is published as a part of
‘Cases in Management Volume 5 (2016)’ with
ISBN 978-93-83302-22-2

The case writer(s) R. Jagadeesh, Professor - Operations, may be reached at

jagadeeshraj@sdmimd.ac.in Author(s) have prepared this case as the basis
for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective
handling of the situation. This case is fictionalized and any resemblance to
actual person or entities is coincidental. This publication may not be digitized,
photocopied, or otherwise reproduced, posted, or transmitted, without the
permission of SDMRCMS, SDMIMD, Mysore. For Teaching Notes please contact
sdmrcms@sdmimd.ac.in.
2 • CASES IN MANAGEMENT

Should the airbag be a bone of contention between the

buyer and the seller?
Well, it need not be. How important is an airbag to a prospective
buyer is a tricky question to answer as many people while buying a car
still look for features like power, seating capacity or comfort, boot
space, resale value, and of course, in a country like India, the average
buyer is always enamoured by the mileage or the distance a car would
run for every litre of the fuel supplied to the car. Secondly, the
awareness about the safety features was for a long time, observed to
be low and hence the manufacturers and the dealers selling the cars,
hardly touched upon them. Further, the safety features always come
with an extra price tag and hence not many buyers were willing to
shell down extra money on them. Hence the question, should the
airbag be a serious factor to tilt the decision of buying may not find a
convincing answer or consensus.

Safety of car – a designer’s imperative or a legal perspective

or a driver’s nightmare?
It is a well known fact that accidents happen due to several reasons
and thus the manufacturers would not be able to provide safety
features to mitigate the risk under all possible situations. Car control
is a term often used to indicate how much a driver can control a car
while driving at different speeds, on different terrains, and under
different conditions of traffic, nature, and of course, the age and
maintenance related factors of the car itself. Hence the driver always
thinks at least while getting into the car that he or she knows how to
control the car as long as he or she is at the wheel. But sadly enough,
“the driver lost the control’ is a common description in the media
while describing how the accident occurred. This indicates that in
spite of all the safety features provided and also the training given to
the person driving the car, some unpredictable or uncontrollable factor
played the role and caused the accident. Hence the car designers
started looking at all possible manners of improving the safety of the
occupants along with the driver such that the car can be controlled by
the driver and introduced safety devices which minimize the impact
 CASES IN MANAGEMENT •3

on the occupants when an accident occurs. This has historically

happened wherein the safety features started getting added to the
car assembly in an evolutionary manner. W ith the advances in
technology, testing of a car has become a sophisticated laboratory
experiment wherein the car is tested under all possible conditions
and the impact is studied. Testing is done on the actual car or a model
or through simulated experiments. This has given enormous insight
into the design of safety features and thus the car design continues to
be a fascinating yet challenging car as both the power capacity as well
the features given in a car have increased manifold over a period of
time.

At the same time, the training and education given to the driver have
also been observed to change over the years as per the instructions of
the traffic control authorities in particular, and the government and
the car manufacturing industry in general. The driver apart from
learning how to drive should also be aware of the legal liabilities and
traffic rules, and has to study them as a part of the education while
undergoing training. It is interesting to observe that a car manufacturer
may set up a training center to teach how to drive a car using both the
simulated arrangement as well the actual car. Maruti Suzuki Limited,
for example in India, has set up more than 350 driving schools in
different parts of the country, (http://www.marutisuzuki.com/).

The safety devices, all said and done, must satisfy two conditions if
they have to meet the intended objective of protecting the vehicle
and / or the occupants. These are: (1) the safety gadget or device must
work in a mistake-proof manner exhibiting highest reliability, and (2)
the driver and other occupants are fully aware of such devices and
know the operating conditions. If any trigger is required by the people
inside the car that should happen in the nick of the time, when an
accident occurs. The safety controls can be categorized as (1) devices
that protect in case of a collision, and (2) the devices that give a visual
or audio warning ahead of a dangerous situation. A speed sensor that
warns when the car is running at high speeds, a device that gauges the
distance when reversing a car, or an indicator on the dashboard, when
the fuel tank is getting empty, are all examples of such warning
4 • CASES IN MANAGEMENT

devices, and as such do not provide any protection if the driver ignores
the warnings. On the other hand a properly worn seat belt and an
airbag are expected to provide a protection to the driver so as to
prevent the body of the driver hitting the frontal portion and
succumbing to serious or fatal injuries. Thus the airbag is seen as a
more proactive device that automatically comes to the rescue of the
driver when an accident happens.

But, the fact is, ironically enough, airbags which are supposed to be
protecting the occupants in a car in case of a collision, caused more
damage to the Toyota Company as they failed to protect the
passengers as expected by them, (Keating, 1984). A detailed report
published by http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/20/autos/takata-airbag-
victims/, states that nearly 8 million airbags have now been recalled
by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, (NHTSA). These
airbags are fitted in the cars manufactured by 14 different automakers,
out of which Honda Company alone accounts for about 5 million cars.

Safety features in a car and concern by the car

manufacturers
Right from the day the primitive models of the cars started rolling on
the streets, safety of the people inside the car was always a question
mark. With the advancement in technology, cars were designed to
carry more people and also move at high speeds on different types of
terrain. Further, more and more automatic controls and electronic
systems started becoming the major features of the cars. This made
the passenger comfort and safety related issues more and more
challenging while designing the cars.

Ever since Henry Ford revolutionized the mass manufacture of cars,

and more people started buying and using cars, the safety of the
occupants inside the cars, became a major concern. A car being a
complex assembly of parts produced in-house or procured from
various sources, is not an easy product to manufacture. For a long
time the car manufacturers focused more on technical issues like
engine power, maximum speed, quick acceleration, seating capacity,
 CASES IN MANAGEMENT •5

driving comfort, and cosmetic features. Safety of the occupants

became a national debate, when unfortunate road accidents started
happening across the globe and the companies took a serious note.
This also prompted the Government in many countries to enact laws
making it mandatory on the part of the manufacturers to install safety
features in the cars. But still many manufacturers, and surprisingly
many customers viewed this development as not so important as both
were more conscious of the final price. Thus serious attempts to
improve safety were found lacking in the third world economies with
the cost of manufacturing the car, playing a major role in pricing. The
manufacturers in the price sensitive markets were apprehensive
about providing safety features that always attracted additional cost.
Further, as long as the number of cars moving on the roads was low,
the danger was not clearly perceived by the makers or the users. In
addition, the changed image of a car as more a status symbol than a
utility, made the manufacturers to focus on luxury and cosmetic
features, and thus, safety issues became a secondary priority. Time
and again several brands of cars are being recalled for poor quality
and probably very few manufacturers might have saved the
embarrassment of recalls, and there is no proof to say that recalls
reduce the number of accidents, (Bae & Benítez-Silva, 2011, 2012).
Thus the present case study has the objectives of assessing the
usefulness of airbags, their design and operation, and the
responsibility of the people involved including the Government,
drivers, and the car makers in ensuring that device works in the
intended manner to provide the required protection.

Airbags, paradox of design or of faulty design?

Airbags evolved over a period of time. In a head on collision it was

commonly observed that the occupants are very likely to bang against
the font metal part inside the car and thus would receive a severe
injury particularly in the head, that could prove to be fatal. Airbag
provides a cushion to the impacted body through a rapidly filed bag
that supports and prevents the body from colliding against the
dashboard or the steering. This prevents a serious injury to the
occupants.
6 • CASES IN MANAGEMENT

The history and development of airbags and subsequent changes

in the last 70 years are well traced in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Airbag. Citing more than 115 articles and reports, Wikipedia says
that airbags became mandatory in several countries. Though originally
it was customary to include airbags on the front side to protect
the passenger and driver in the front seat, it became a common
practice to provide airbags to the back seat passengers also. Along
with this major development, the airbags were also introduced
to provide safety in case of side impacts, and also to knees. It is not
the intention here to provide a detailed history of airbags, but to
indicate that airbags have now become a standard accessory in high
end cars, and are available at an additional cost for the less expensive
cars.

How an airbag works, and how it became a mandatory requirement in

cars produced in the US since 1991, is well illustrated in http://
web.bryant.edu/~ehu/h364proj/sprg_97/dirksen /airbags.html. Today
the airbag is considered as a part of the standard equipment in a car.

Long back, an objective assessment of the airbag was made, to

determine the usefulness of the airbag in case of a collision, (Will air-
bags cut car deaths? 1970). Further, it is clearly debated (Keating-Edh,
1984) to find out whether the airbag helps or poses a danger, and it
was noticed that only a small number of car users, 14.4%, favoured
the installation of airbags. Further, the airbags when installed in a
new car used to increase the cost by around $200, which did not go
well with the car buyers. It was also observed that airbags along with
seatbelts worn by the occupants would be more effective and airbags
alone would not be much helpful. Further, airbags are of no use after
the initial deployment. Thus the car buyers were less inclined towards
the installation of air bags in the cars.

Later, additional health hazards were found with the use of airbags in
the cars. The rapid filling of an airbag results in hearing threshold
shift, making the persons less sensitive to noise because of loss of
sensitivity, as propounded by Rouhana et. al. (1994). The same
 CASES IN MANAGEMENT •7

observation is reported in Holt (1999), which expresses serious

concern about the noise-related problem, (Air bags may damage
hearing, 1999). In a similar report, researchers (Buckley, Setchfield, &
Frampton, 1999) have expressed concern that the airbags may inflate
unnecessarily in low speed crashes and can cause eye, face, upper
limb, and chest injuries. With the help of two cases it is indicated that
the airbag inflation in low speed collisions, leads to hearing loss and
persistent tinnitus without any other injuries. In another study how
airbags can cause eye injuries has been examined and suggested that
efforts must be in full swing to mitigate the problems, (Pearlman,
Eong, Kuhn & Pieramici, 2001).

Continuing on the loss of hearing ability of the occupants in case of

deployment of airbags (Banglmaier & Rouhana, 2003), it was noticed
that the airbags are inflated in a very short span causing excessive
noise leading to loss of hearing sensitivity, described as Noise Induced
Hearing Loss (NIHL). These things clearly illustrate that airbags are
also responsible for creating additional health risks and hence have
to be weighed against the possible benefits versus the harmful side
effects on the occupants.

A comprehensive article, What makes airbags dangerous? - Dan Newlin

- Millions Recovered. (2011) summarises how airbags themselves can
become a hazard due to various reasons, Based on this article, it
appears that many car users are not aware of the malfunctioning of
the airbags and thus are prone to become victims should the airbags
in their cars do not function properly.

However, situation seems to have improved when looked at the report

by NHTSA, (Ferguson & Schneider, 2008). It is stated that the airbag
crash related accidents have come down, (Special Crash
Investigations—A Model for Future Corrective Action: First Generation
Frontal Air Bags, 2010). This trend is illustrated in Figure 1. Strict and
coordinated enforcement of rules and regulations, along with
intensive educations and by public awareness programs ensured near
zero fatalities in airbag crash situations.
8 • CASES IN MANAGEMENT

From the literature review, it is clear that the airbags as safety devices
are conceived on a good design and can definitely reduce the impact
of the accident on the driver, particularly in the case of head-on
collision, which is almost sure to cause instantaneous death to the
front seat occupants in a car. Then why they are seen as dangerous is
because they have failed in their operational effectiveness, either in
terms of the timing, or in terms of inadequate inflating. It is essential
that that the airbags should instantaneously open up the moment a
collision happens. This event is triggered by a mechanism that is built
with a sensor that recognizes the impact. Airbag is deployed more
because of deceleration after the hit and not based on speed. Further,
even if the temperature rises beyond a certain limit inside the car or
near the engine, which can be the case after driving for a long distance
in hot weather, the airbag is deployed to minimize the explosion
possibility, and save the occupants from getting burnt, (http://
www.crashforum.info).

Regarding the timing is concerned, airbag must come into action

in a tiny fraction of time, and for this the trigger has to be rapid
and the inflating mechanism should act fast. This depends on the
sensor on one hand and on the other on many parameters including
the stature of the person, the extra weight carried by the seat,
the crash severity, and the design factors like single stage inflating,
or multistage inflating. Hence if the trigger mechanism doesn’t
function properly the activation of the airbag will always be affected,
which is essentially what happened in the of Takata airbags
deployment case.

Is the supplier at fault? Takata, the airbag manufacturer and

supplier

Takata Kojo Corporation started manufacturing seat belts in 1952 and

since then has become a global supplier of safety products for the
purpose of saving the lives of the driver and passengers, in case of a
collision. The company has the motto of saving human lives anywhere
in the world, with their safety equipment fitted in the cars.
 CASES IN MANAGEMENT •9

As stated by Takata Corporation, Japan, http://www.takata.com/en.,

the objective of the company is as follows

• “At Takata, we dream of a “world with zero fatalities from traffic

accidents.” We understand the importance of every individual,
and hope to one day experience a global community where
everyone recognizes the true value of human life”.

Figure 1 : Air bag related fatalities over the years

From the data related to Figure 1, the following estimates are made:

Average number of fatalities = 15.8 per year.

What is more relevant is to observe how the airbags were able to save
lives, as over a period of 10 years the fatalities came down from 42%
to 36%, (https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov). This improvement is
attributed to the deployment of airbags, though the role of other
safety measures is not discounted.

Keeping this in mind the Takata company started expanding its

production and operations from 1980’s and started setting up units in
many countries in Americas, Europe, and Asia. Particularly in those
10 • CASES IN MANAGEMENT

countries where the production of cars started zooming up because

of the increase in demand, for example in India, Takata established
their unit, and thus today has 57 plants in 22 countries around the
world. This has helped the company in understanding the local
markets, climatic conditions, driving styles, regulations, and also the
customers’ preferences, thus enabling the company to customize their
products. As mentioned earlier, an airbag offers better protection
when seat belt is also worn by the person, and thus the company
produces an array of seat belts and airbags to suit many vehicles.
Starting from the eighties, the company has set up labs and testing
units to ascertain the quality of the products.

Takata states that it aims towards total safety system with the safety
of both the persons inside the car as well those outside it, thereby
minimizing the overall impact on the society. Based on their research
and development efforts, the Takata Company is moving towards
developing overall safety solutions, as depicted in Figure 2, which
illustrates both current Takata products and products under
development.

Takata has not restricted itself to manufacture only seat belts

and airbags, but is also manufacturing steering wheels and other
products. But airbags continue to be the company’s major product in
terms of sales as seen in Figure 3. The company aims to become a
world leader in providing safety solutions across a range of vehicles
and tries to save lives of people or minimize the danger in case of a
collision.
 CASES IN MANAGEMENT • 11

Figure 2. Takata Total Safety System

(Source: http://www.takata.com/en/about/development.html)

Figure 3.Sales by product category of Takata Company, as in the

year 2015.
(Source: Takata Corporation Corporate Brochure 2015)
12 • CASES IN MANAGEMENT

The Explosion – Massive recall of airbags

The recall of vehicles because of airbags became international

news, (“Takata Airbag Recall - Everything You Need to Know”, 2016),
and the list of vehicles released in the media included the top
brands in the field of automobile manufacturers. It was mentioned
that cars made by 14 different automakers have been recalled
to replace frontal airbags on the driver’s side or passenger’s side,
or both. NHTSA has called this incident as “the largest and
most complex safety recall in U.S. history.” It was also found that
the airbags fitted in the models from the year 2002 to 2015, were
all supplied by Takata. This sent a panic wave across the globe
because the sheer number of airbags to be recalled was in millions.
The total number of vehicles recalled due to faulty airbags
was around 34 million vehicles in the United States, and another
7 million worldwide, (Blackwell, 2016). The news also said about
at least 10 deaths and more than 100 injuries because of faulty air
bags, in the US alone. Accurate picture of airbag disaster across
the globe is not available, though one can argue about the role of
airbags seen both as a life saver and as a life pruner. Because, it is
claimed that the Department of Transportation estimates that
between 1987 and 2012, frontal airbags have saved 37,000 lives. This
further fuelled the debate about the role played by the airbags, with
no clarity on the continuance of the installation of airbags, which may
help or harm the users, given the precarious consequences namely
death or injuries.

Cloud of mystery behind the Takata airbags

As mentioned earlier, 14 top auto makers producing high end

models and luxury vehicles, initiated recalls to ensure that the airbags
supplied by Takata are found in proper order or not. The list of auto
companies is given in Table 1. It may be noted that out of these
companies 14 companies were prioritized based on the volume
requirement.
 CASES IN MANAGEMENT • 13

Table1
Automobile manufacturing companies who initiated recalls due
to airbags
Acura General Motors Nissan
Audi Honda Scion
BMW Infiniti Subaru
Chrysler Lexus Toyota
Ferrari Mazda Volkswagen
Ford Mitsubishi Jaguar/Land Rover

As reported in the media, both Honda and Takata companies knew

about the problem with the airbags (Atiyeh, 2016), as early as in 2004,
but neither of them shared the data with the concerned authorities
nor informed the other automakers, perhaps because the incident
was not seen as gruesome or thought as inviting investigation or
expecting public ire. However, the newspaper which carried the news,
reported that a review of federal documents revealed that the airbags
have caused two deaths and 30 injuries in Honda vehicles and no less
than 139 reported injuries across all automakers. Honda resorted to a
tiny recall in 2008 in which 4205 cars were taken back and the action
was repeated eight times. Shockingly, Honda had not informed the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that the airbags had
actually ruptured or were linked to injuries and deaths. Also in 2007,
Honda took back airbag parts during dealer service visits without
notifying owners and shipped the parts to Takata for analysis. Though
NHTSA started investigating in November 2009 closed it after six
months, ignoring the information that was available with Takata.

Further, another dimension was added to the airbag explosion in an

article (Anon. 2016) which states that there are two elements involved
in an airbag rupture, one is the inflator and the other is the propellant.
Based on the tests conducted by Takata and other independent
entities, degradation in propellant can cause rupture in the airbag
because of the varying configuration of the propellant and inflator.
This further results in exploding of the inflator parts during the airbag
14 • CASES IN MANAGEMENT

rupture causing severe injuries to the occupants. Hence it also argued

that the issue is related to the airbag inflator and not the actual airbag
fitted inside a car. Further, different airbags might have received
different inflators from different suppliers and thus the whole issue
cannot be attributed to airbags alone. It is quite possible that in the
same car, different airbags and inflators supplied by different vendors
might have been fitted. It is also likely that different suppliers might
have provided different airbags fitted on the front and side of the
passengers. These observations have made the process of
investigation, a more challenging proposition, as multiple parties are
involved and the issues are interconnected to result in misleading
conclusions. But, what needs to be observed here is the Takata
Company has singlehandedly taken the responsibility of recalls and
replacement, thereby indicating the company stands for voluntary
adherence to quality standards. But because the information was not
made public by Honda and Takata Companies, even though they knew
the issue, can they be seen as professionally unethical is also a
question not easy to answer, because the number of death or injuries
was too small. Only when the recalls started off in big numbers, the
responsibility was accepted by Takata.

Toyota Motor Corporation and Recalls

Though many companies got affected, only one company namely

Toyota is discussed here. The reason is, Toyota all these years is seen
as an epitome of quality and stands apart from the rest because of
excellent quality principles the company has been advocating all these
days. Hence the heading may look like an oxymoron given the fact
that the Toyota Company is historically known for high quality of the
products it makes and recognized world over as a pioneer in the
manufacture of cars. Like many other Japanese companies, Toyota
has put quality at the top of the agenda. Their legendary production
system known as the Toyota Production system, is the envy of
operations managers all over the world, as illustrated by many authors
for example, Benders & Morita (2004), Black (2007), New (2007),
OÌ„no., (1988). Marksberry (2013), and Nortje & Snaddon (2013). As of
 CASES IN MANAGEMENT • 15

2008, 48 books, in English, and 382 in Japanese, have been published

about the Toyota Company, out of which 24 and 97 books in the two
languages respectively have focused on Toyota Production system,
(Osono, Shimizu, & Takeuchi, 2008). In fact, Toyota itself rigorously
follows the continuous improvement technique, popularly called as
“kaizen” in Japanese, (Liker & Franz, 2011).

In the history of automobiles, recalls are not new or infrequent. Several

companies including the legendary Ford Company of US, have
experienced a series of recalls. But the impact of recalls may not be
devastating as sufficient evidence may still not be available for banning
the product. This usually happens with all the recalls, as people are
also likely to forget the recalls and move on with their buying decisions,
as evidenced by early researchers, Grafton, Hoffer & Reilly (1981),
and Reilly & Hoffer (1983).

No doubt it is the reputation of a company that is first affected in the

case of recall, as researched by several authors, like Rhee & Haunschild
(2003, 2006), and Rupp & Taylor (2003). What is interesting here is
Toyota in spite of all the quality systems in place, could not escape
the quality related issues commonly encountered by other
manufacturers. In an earlier instance, malfunctioning devices causing
the death of the occupants inside the car, made the company to
compulsorily recall their cars, described and debated by several
authors, for example, Auffermann (2010), and Heechang, Robert, &
Oredola (2012), and Hammond (2013). A visible impact of recalls is
reflected in the sales, as reported by Shin, Richardson, & Soluade
(2014), who have specifically examined the loss of sales of Toyota cars
in the wake of the recalls.

Here is the excerpt that shook the car owners and drivers, (Everything
You Need to Know About the Takata Airbag Recall - Consumer Reports
News, 2015).

• “More than 30 million vehicles in the United States, made by 10

different automakers, have been recalled to replace frontal
16 • CASES IN MANAGEMENT

airbags on the driver’s side or passenger’s side, or both. The

airbags, made by major parts supplier Takata, were mostly
installed in cars from model year 2002 through 2008, although it
has been expanded through 2014 in some cases. Some of those
airbags could deploy explosively, injuring or even killing car
occupants. At the heart of the problem is the airbag’s inflator, a
metal cartridge loaded with propellant wafers, which in some
cases has ignited with explosive force. If the inflator housing
ruptures in a crash, metal shreds from the airbag can be sprayed
throughout the passenger cabin—a potentially disastrous
outcome from a supposedly life-saving device.”

Questions and more questions

The uncertainty of replacement in case of a faulty airbag looms large
over the minds of the customers, because, the number of airbags
recalled exceeds 34 million. Sensing the demand exerted on their
production system, Takata has ramped up their production capacity,
but still the time required for production is a major concern. This may
takes months and even years given the huge quantity of production.
Sensing the danger of running out of time, Takata has contacted the
other manufacturers of airbags for help. These rival manufacturers
include companies like AutoLiv, TRW, and Daicel (“Takata Airbag Recall
- Everything You Need to Know”, 2016). These competitors have agreed
to use their capacity to produce the airbags to be used for replacement
purpose.

However, a thorough investigation by NHTSA has found the root cause

of the problem. It is observed that ammonium nitrate based propellant
used in airbags, which is subjected to environmental moisture, high
temperature, and age, is likely to cause improper inflating of the
airbags thus leading to death or injuries to the occupants of the
passenger car. Hence, the number recalled has tripled in size over the
past year, because of public announcements and currently more than
100 million vehicles worldwide with airbag inflators are in need of
replacement before 2019. (“Takata Airbag Recall - Everything You Need
to Know”, 2016). A herculean task indeed!
 CASES IN MANAGEMENT • 17

Whose responsibility it is?

Airbags are not considered as primary safety devices but are called
supplemental devices. Because they will be fully effective only if:

Ø The driver and the front seat occupants are wearing seat belts

Ø The airbag On – Off switch is turned “on”.

Ø The positioning of the person is quite conducive for protection

by the airbag in terms of the stance (position or inclination of the
person)

Ø The distance between the passenger’s body and the front

dashboard is maintained at 10 inches.

Ø Airbags have been replaced after deployment.

These conditions clearly show that the responsibility of the front seat
occupants including driver is the maximum if they have to derive the
benefit of the airbag. Next comes the effectiveness of the trigger
mechanism which is battery operated, in deploying the airbag in case
an accident occurs. This makes it imperative that the battery is properly
charged and the mechanism is in good condition. Only then the airbag
provides the necessary protection and saves the lives. If these
conditions are not in place, the airbags fail to discharge their duty and
further, may get triggered under false alarm causing more damage to
the occupants.

The following suggestions are worth implementing by the concerned

agencies to save lives:

a) While teaching how to drive, the driving schools should also teach
about the airbags and the necessary instructions to be followed

b) The airbag manufacturers and the vendors who supply the

constituent parts must certify that they have complied with the
prevailing rules and adhere to the regulations as imposed by the
Government or such authorities
18 • CASES IN MANAGEMENT

c) Thorough testing of the airbags must be done under different

crash conditions and their reliability should be ascertained

d) Car manufacturers should insist on the buyers to go for air bag

installation as a standard fitment, rather than showing them as
under extra charge, which would deter the car buyers from going
for airbags

e) Preferred to have the cost of airbags built into the total cost by
considering the airbags as standard and mandatory safety devices
and not showing them as luxury features

f) Drivers and the front seat occupants should strictly follow the
guidelines issued by the safety authorities.

g) Aged persons and children under the age of 12 years, must avoid
being seated in the front.

All these suggestions indicate that safety to be derived from the safety
features fitted in a car are realized only by collective responsibility of
all concerned and more by the drivers.

Epilogue

Airbags per se are not at all fault if they fail to perform or wrongly
perform. Buyers need to understand the big picture and not to
hold only the manufacturer as responsible for the safety of the
occupants.

Will Mr. Airavata continue to wait for his Toyota car, thinking that
better devices coupled with stringent inspection will be offered to
the customers? Will he shift his choice to another model or make?
Perhaps it is possible to answer these questions by 2019, hoping that
the Takata Company would have completed the replacement of all
the airbags, before or by that time.
 CASES IN MANAGEMENT • 19

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