Modern vehicles rely on a wide range of safety systems — airbags, seatbelts, anti-lock brakes, electronic stability control, tire-pressure monitors, and increasingly, driver-assistance technology — to protect occupants in a crash or help avoid one altogether. When one of these systems is defectively designed, poorly manufactured, or simply fails to perform as intended, the consequences can turn a survivable accident into a catastrophic one. If a malfunctioning safety system contributed to your injuries, the vehicle or parts manufacturer may be legally responsible.
Many of today’s most serious vehicle defect cases involve high-tech driver-assistance systems designed to prevent collisions before they happen. These systems include forward collision avoidance and automatic emergency braking, pedal misapplication mitigation (technology meant to distinguish between the brake and accelerator pedals and override unintended acceleration), and the radar, lidar, and ultrasonic sensors that feed these systems the real-time data they depend on. When a vehicle is equipped with this technology, drivers reasonably expect it to function as advertised.
When a collision avoidance system fails to detect an obstacle, a sensor malfunctions or is improperly calibrated, or a pedal misapplication system does not engage when it should, the result can be a crash the technology was specifically designed to prevent. If a defect in one of these systems failed to activate, and that failure could have prevented the accident, the vehicle manufacturer or component supplier may be held liable for the resulting injuries.
Claims involving radar, lidar, ultrasonic sensors, and other advanced driver-assistance technology are highly technical and require specialized experts in automotive engineering, sensor technology, and software design to prove how and why a system failed. Wieand Parker Arreola, PLLC, has recovered tens of millions of dollars for clients whose injuries were caused by defective vehicle safety systems, and our firm has the resources and experience to take on these complex, high-tech cases.
These cases often involve manufacturing recalls, technical service bulletins, and complex engineering analysis to determine whether a system was defectively designed, poorly manufactured, or improperly installed. Our firm works with automotive and mechanical engineering experts to reconstruct what happened and identify every party in the supply chain who may bear responsibility, from the parts supplier to the vehicle manufacturer.
If you were injured because a vehicle safety system failed to work as designed, contact our office today for a free consultation. We can help determine whether a defect played a role in your accident or your injuries.
