The AP reported under regulatory pressure, Ford expanded its recall of the F-150 pickup truck over an “electrical short” than can cause air bags to deploy without a crash. The recall includes 1.2 million trucks largely from model years 2004 and 2005, and some from 2006. Former National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Joan Claybrook said before the automaker’s recalls last year, it was unlikely the NHTSA would’ve called for the expanded recall, “but the agency has become more aggressive since being criticized over Toyota’s problems.” Toyota spokesman Wes Sherwood “said the company didn’t recall the trucks five years ago because it didn’t think there was a safety risk.”
The Los Angeles Times reported, “Federal safety regulators said there have been at least 269 incidents – more than a third of which resulted in injuries – making it the most ‘ever recorded in any inadvertent airbag deployment investigation or recall’ in the history of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.” The Times adds the size of Ford’s initial recall of 144,000 pickups “drew the interest of federal safety regulators who thought that the automaker should have called back far more trucks.”
Reuters reported the recall includes 89,000 vehicles in Canada, 46,000 in Mexico, and 10,000 elsewhere around the world.
From the American Association for Justice news release.
