#AirBag #Business - U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said Friday that the world’s largest air-bag maker, Takata, will be fined $14,000 a day until it complies with federal demands for more information on air bags that have killed six people and maimed dozens more. “Those air bags can explode with such force that they have grievously injured people and, in a half-dozen cases, killed them,” Foxx said. “To remove that threat and get to the root cause of this defect, we need Takata’s cooperation, and so far they have not demonstrated it.” The metal inflation canisters on some Takata air bags have been shattered by the propellent they contain, spraying drivers and passengers with shards of metal. More that 22 million vehicles, including about 17 million in the United States, have been recalled by automakers. Only 2 million U.S. vehicles had been repaired as of December.
“We’ve pushed hard to get millions of defective Takata air bags off our roads,” said Foxx, who was in Richmond on a bus tour to promote infrastructure investment. The National Highway Traffic Administration “has issued two orders compelling Takata to provide the documents and information we need to fix this problem, and the company has failed to abide by those orders. Takata’s failure to fully cooperate with our investigation is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Foxx also asked Congress to require that rental cars and used cars up for sale that are under recall be repaired before they are rented or sold. The most recent death attributed to a Takata air bag, that of Carlos Solis, 35, near Houston last month, came in a used car that was under recall when he bought it, NHTSA said.
Although it was first threatened with the fines in November, Takata issued a statement Friday saying it was “surprised and disappointed.”
“We strongly disagree with their characterization that we have not been fully cooperating with them,” the statement said. “We have provided the agency with almost 2.5 million pages of documents to date. We have also been meeting regularly with NHTSA engineers on efforts to identify the root cause of the inflator issue.”
Title : The largest air-bag maker Takata hit with $14,000 a day federal fine
Description : #AirBag #Business - U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said Friday that the world’s largest air-bag maker, Takata, will be fined...