Your Camaro Has Been Recalled For A Faulty Sticker
Diane Katz at Heritage.org notes that GM is recalling almost 19,000 Camaro's for violating Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 208, which among other things, mandates:
Passenger Cars, Multipurpose Passenger Vehicles, Trucks and Buses (Effective 2-25-97) Shall be equipped with a warning label.
Katz writes:
GM is recalling 18,941 Chevy Camaros because the air bag warning label on the sun visor may peel.Seriously.
The result:
GM also issued a stop delivery order to dealers, and instructed them to inspect the label on each sun visor ("using a finger nail, plastic card, or similar" to determine proper adhesion). In the event a label is prone to peel, the entire sun visor must be scrapped and replaced.This is no small matter, evidently. If the air bag warning label detaches from the visor, the driver and front seat passenger may not be warned of the risks of air bag deployment. Or so goes the reasoning for the adhesion edict. But even when warned via visor label, a driver and front seat passenger have little choice about air bag deployment, since the potentially dangerous equipment is required by the NHTSA itself.
In other words, General Motors is required under NHTSA rules to initiate a recall of 18,941 vehicles because of a danger created by other NHTSA rules. Perhaps it is regulators who should come with a warning label.
New cars and relatively new cars have airbags. Unless you were raised in a cave and only recently been brought back to civilization, don't you know this?
I know there are airbags in my 2004 Honda Insight, so I bought a console doggie seat, because it can be dangerous to have a tiny dog seated in a front seat if the airbag deploys.
But stickers...stickers...
via @tedfrank
I suppose the text on the sticker has to be in the language of the person driving the car (the sticker in my car has several languages on it). Should there be a regulation forbidding passengers who can't read the sticker from riding within the deployment range of an airbag?
Ken R at November 25, 2013 9:52 PM
I suppose asking for those Camaro drivers to come into the nearest dealership so they can slap a new sticker on would be more practical, but then it wouldn't justify the bureaucrats' existence nearly as effectively.
Patrick at November 26, 2013 2:47 AM
I covered up the airbag stickers in my pirate – er, car – because they were so ugly. Come get me, G-man!
dee nile at November 26, 2013 3:41 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/11/26/airbag.html#comment-4078901">comment from dee nileI covered up the airbag stickers in my pirate – er, car
Hah - just noticed that.
Amy Alkon at November 26, 2013 5:43 AM
We have had mandatory airbags a lot longer than we have had warnings. Our nannys concealed the dangers as long as possible.
Bar Sinister at November 26, 2013 7:05 AM
Yes, because warning labels solve all problems, right? The State of California knows.
Cousin Dave at November 26, 2013 8:51 AM
The article doesn't really explain what they mean by recall. It lets you assume that it means that it sends hundreds of repo men out into the field to bring everyone's car into the dealer. What it probably actually means is that owners of these cars will get a letter, or an email, telling them they can, if they want to, go to a dealer to get a new visor. Which, I imagine most of them won't. So the overall cost of this would be fairly minor. And in a world where we do have incredibly stupid and obvious warning labels, the airbag warning is not that egregious. The link below is about a 1-year-old decapitated by an airbag:
http://articles.latimes.com/1996-11-28/news/mn-3765_1_air-bag-concerns
clinky at November 26, 2013 3:27 PM
And in a world where we do have incredibly stupid and obvious warning labels, the airbag warning is not that egregious. The link below is about a 1-year-old decapitated by an airbag:
I hate to be "that guy", oh wait, no I dont.
Fuck em.
Sure it sucks for the kid, but odds are with such stupid parents he'd grow up to be just as stupid and a burden on society.
If I had my way warning labels would not only not be mandatory, but illegal as well.
Want to use a toaster in the tub? go right ahead.
Want to eat that package of 'gum' you found hidden in your stereo equipment? have at it
There are 6.9 billion to many people on the planet, I see no need to save people from the consequences of their own fatal stupidity. Doing so ensures that stupidity survives and propagates.
lujlp at November 26, 2013 3:39 PM
Well I just got a recall letter on my car.
Apparently the brake light switch can corrode and stay on, or not activate at all.
So I'm going to think of that as valid. This is total crap.
Jim P. at November 26, 2013 7:42 PM
Apparently the brake light switch can corrode and stay on, or not activate at all.
Half the vehicles in India have corroded brake light switches and stay on or do not activate at all. The one in my car also corroded. I just put some old lube oil on the contact points and the damn thing just worked fine.
Redrajesh at November 26, 2013 8:42 PM
The big problem with warning labels isn't any one of them; it's the accumulation. It's a variation of tragedy of the commons; look up "alarm fatigue". Any time a person is bombarded with alarms, they learn to tune them all out -- how many of us pay any attention to car alarms these days? A couple of years ago, I was talking to a factory safety guy about problems they were having with their safety training programs. He said that a big problem they have with younger workers is that they don't pay any attention to warning labels on machinery, because they've grown up in a world full of stupid and meaningless warning labels. So when they see a warning label for something that is truly both dangerous and non-obvious, they have no way to distinguish it; it's just more noise to them.
Cousin Dave at November 27, 2013 6:18 AM
Again, I agree that we have way too many warning labels for things that are not dangerous or completely obvious. But airbag warnings are not even close to being near the worst of these. They can be quite dangerous, and are not at all obvious, in that if a space alien came down and started driving a car, there is nothing that can be seen on the dashboard that indicate that in the event of a crash, a balloon will come out with possibly deadly force.
Airbags do come under the heading of "common knowledge," though, but I am very often shocked by the number of people who don't know about things that I consider common knowledge. Plus, you can easily make the argument that part of the reason airbags are common knowledge is because of the warning labels...
clinky at November 27, 2013 10:02 AM
The problem with warning labels is the number of people who will sue if there is not a warning label (and the number who will sue even if there is one).
So, GM is forced to ensure the permanency of the warning label in order to avoid being sued several years down the line from someone injured in an airbag deployment in a car that no longer has a warning label.
Conan the Grammarian at November 27, 2013 3:26 PM
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