When Airbags Fail To Deploy in a Texas Crash

Attorney Answer

A crash by itself does not show the airbags were defective — but if the restraint system should have fired and did not, that can be a claim against the manufacturer, and the proof is sitting inside your truck right now.

Airbags are not built to deploy in every collision. They fire when the crash sensors read an impact of a certain direction, severity and duration, and a hydroplaning slide into a guardrail followed by a ditch may or may not cross that threshold — angled and glancing impacts frequently do not. So the first question is not who to sue. It is whether the system performed the way it was designed to perform. That is an engineering question, answered from the vehicle's own crash-sensing module and the physical evidence in the cab, not from how violent the wreck felt.

If the answer is that the system should have deployed and did not, Texas recognizes claims against a vehicle manufacturer for a product that was defectively designed, defectively manufactured, or that failed to protect an occupant in a foreseeable crash. Those are demanding claims. They generally require expert engineering proof that a defect existed when the truck left the manufacturer and that the defect caused injuries you would not otherwise have suffered. The specific Texas rules that govern products claims against a manufacturer are the reason this is a lawyer's case rather than a do-it-yourself insurance claim.

Your own responsibility for the crash also matters. Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.001, a claimant whose percentage of responsibility is greater than 50 percent recovers nothing, and § 33.012(a) reduces the recovery of a claimant below that line by the claimant's own percentage. Under § 33.013(a) each liable defendant is liable only for the percentage of the damages equal to its own percentage of responsibility; § 33.013(b) makes a defendant jointly and severally liable only where its share is greater than 50 percent, or where it acted in concert with specific intent to do harm in one of the intentional offenses that subsection lists. How a jury would divide responsibility between losing control of the truck and an alleged defect in a restraint system is precisely the question a lawyer has to evaluate on your facts — it is not a reason to walk away, and it is not something to assume in your favor either.

What you can do

1. Do not let the truck be repaired, sold for salvage, parted out or crushed. Tell your insurance company and the storage lot, in writing, that the vehicle must be preserved intact, including the airbag control module and the seat belts.

2. Photograph the interior before anything is touched — the steering wheel and dash, the undeployed airbag covers, the seat belts and their anchor points, and the warning lights on the instrument cluster.

3. Photograph the exterior damage from every side, and photograph the guardrail and the ditch if you can do it safely.

4. Get a copy of the officer's crash report from the agency that investigated.

5. Look up your truck's VIN in the federal vehicle-safety recall database to see whether any recall or open investigation touches its restraint system, and save what you find.

6. Keep every medical record and bill from the day of the crash forward, including the emergency-room visit, even if you felt fine at the time.

7. Ask a Texas attorney who handles vehicle-defect cases whether an engineer should download the crash-sensing data before anyone does anything else with the truck. Storage fees and salvage sales destroy these cases far more often than the law does.

Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts with a Texas attorney is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(a) requires suit for personal injury, and for injury to property, to be brought not later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues. When that period ends in your situation depends on your own facts, so have a Texas attorney check the dates rather than counting them yourself — and move well before then, because the truck is the evidence and it will not be there in two years.