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Airbags Didn’t Work As Driver Didn’t Collide ’Properly’ - Toyota Dealer 

Airbags Didn’t Deploy Since Driver Didn’t Collide Properly, Says Toyota India Dealer

Among all the car buyers in India, few go for a car with airbags as an option because of the high-cost associated with it. However, what if you did buy a car with airbags which didn’t work during a collision? Mr. Anil Nair found out recently when he met with an accident at the Ernakulam-Alleppey highway in Kerala. His Toyota Etios was involved in frontal collision on the highway, and yet the airbags failed to deploy. While he faced some serious injuries, the co-passenger was hospitalised for 2 weeks.

When Mr. Nair contacted his Toyota dealer and informed them about the case, the dealer replied "It’s because you did not collide properly." Out of frustration Mr. Nair then asked, "Then how must I collide for the airbags to function properly? How can I trust this vehicle again? I hope they will train people to bang their cars right in order to ensure that the airbags are deployed."

The Toyota dealer continues to defend his statement by saying that the sensors didn’t work because the collision wasn’t direct or ’proper’. One must know that an airbag deploys automatically in case of a head-on collision above a certain speed, no matter if the brakes are applied or not. The probable reason why the airbags did not deploy could be because the driver and co-passenger were not wearing seat belts, but both the victims claim that they were indeed wearing seat belts since they were driving on a highway. Also, Kochi Police is considered to be very strict about traffic laws.

The incident has also caused quite a furor across social media platforms and different websites. We also believe that Toyota India not only needs to apologise for such irresponsible behaviour by its dealer, but also inspect the reason behind the failure. And if there is a serious manufacturing defect with a batch of vehicles, it should be rectified at the earliest.