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Hoverboard Explosions

Defective Products

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Just like our smartphones, tablets, and laptops, the lithium-ion batteries found in these products are prone to defects. However, at the footrest of the popular 2015 “Hoverboards”, the “cheap” battery is a lot more dangerous. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) conducted tests on models to determine the cause of the fires. This resulted in a massive recall of over half a million hoverboards. The issue has become so serious that major airlines have banned hover boards on board – U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized nearly 1,400 hoverboards in JFK alone last December. If you or someone you know has been injured while being around a hoverboard, contact a Sacramento personal injury attorney immediately.

At least 99 incidents have been reported of battery packs overheating, sparking, smoking, catching fire and/or exploding. These incidents have to lead to burns, injuries and property damage. Following the July 2016 recall, The CPSC urges consumers to immediately stop using the following recalled products:

  • Hover-Way/Model # HWSBB601-R
  • Powerboard
  • Hype Roam
  • iMoto
  • Airwalk Self Balancing Electric Scooter
  • Hovertrax
  • Swagwag X1
  • Wheeli
  • 2Wheelz
  • Back to the Future
  • Mobile Tech
  • Hover Shark
  • NWS
  • X Glide and X Rider

Depending on the above model, you will either receive a refund, repair or replacement.

What makes hover boards so dangerous is not the product itself, but the batteries in them. To meet the high demand, brands are using cheaper components to lure shoppers in for a more affordable hands-free segway. The quality and consistency of these batteries are typically not as good as what is found in laptops and other consumer products.

Each battery contains a “separator” designed to separate the anode and cathode – which is what the current flows through – so nothing short circuits. In a cheaper battery, the separator may not be aligned correctly. Due to impurities in metal particles, the separator could be prone to small holes. The punctured separator, therefore, can result in a short circuit. Another practice that can lead to short circuit is overcharging. Lithium-ion batteries cannot accept overcharge, which is why products contain cut-off mechanisms. Your hoverboard’s charger detects when the battery is charged, and stops the charging process automatically. However, defects in this feature may lead to overcharging and therefore, a fire.

Most modern batteries now incorporate all kinds of safety measures such as emergency vents, but because hoverboards are new, it’s a product without a safety standard. If you or someone you know has been injured while using a hoverboard, contact a personal injury attorney immediately.

And although batteries have been the main cause of hoverboard fires, a defected charger could also lead to a scooter explosion. The best way to prevent a hoverboard to burst into flames is to buy from a trusted manufacturer, but that could be difficult to tell given this category is completely new. This fad makes it difficult to tell which of these companies will even be around in the coming years, let alone, which ones are the safest. Another way is to keep a close eye on the charging process and even use an external universal charger for safer precautions. Also make sure to take good care of the hoverboard as to not drop it, kick it, or hit sharp objects with it that could potentially damage the separator sheets.

As much as a consumer can do to protect the safety of himself/herself and others around them, product defects still occur and it’s important to contact a Sacramento personal injury attorney for help.

Speak to Sacramento Personal Injury Attorney for Specific Answers Regarding Your Injury Case

The Weinberger Law Firm has years of experience handling personal injury cases so we understand how difficult and stressful this time may be. You can trust that our accident attorney will provide the compassion and dedication you need to get the compensation you deserve. Give us a call at (916) 357-6767 for a free consultation.

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There are many causes of car accidents and as the population of California steadily increases, the number of car accidents is sure to follow. Most car accidents are preventable and it’s important for drivers to take every measure possible to ensure everyone’s safety, and this includes maintaining their car tires. Many people are unaware that the tires on their vehicle can play an important role in preventing an accident from happening. However, the opposite is also true and improperly maintained tires can prove disastrous. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has established that improperly maintained car tires are a leading cause of accidents each and every year. Improper inflation and low tread depth are some of the main issues highlighted in the research conducted, and both are entirely preventable. If you have any questions regarding your car accident case or suspect that improper maintenance could have prevented the accident altogether, please consult with one of our car accident attorney in Sacramento immediately.

Improper Tire Inflation

Underinflated tires are a serious danger that many motorists all but completely ignore until it’s too late. Transport safety experts state that cars with underinflated tires can cause up to three times as many accidents as those that are inflated properly. Tires that are underinflated not only make it more difficult for the driver to control the vehicle, they also make the tires more prone to catastrophic failure, also known as a blow-out. Blow-outs can cause accidents of varying severity but if the vehicle was traveling at a high rate of high speed, chances are it will be very serious. Tire blow-outs can cause vehicles to flip or careen into oncoming traffic, significantly increasing the risk of fatality. Many drivers are surprised to hear that a small amount of routine maintenance, such as checking your tire pressure regularly, will significantly reduce their risk of an accident.

Worn Treads

Car tires require frequent replacement, particularly if you notice that the treads are beginning to get worn out. If you notice that the tires of your car are sleek and smooth, then you are inevitably headed toward disaster. As a car owner, you should understand that the treads on your tires are crucial for maintaining good traction on the road. Shallow treads cannot maintain the necessary grip on the road to keep you and those you share the road with safe. Without proper tire tread, your vehicle will not be able to sufficiently complete the actions that you attempt to make, and you will have a reduced ability to avoid dangerous situations. Maintaining your tires properly and making sure they have adequate tread depth will give you more control on the road, helping you to avoid accidents and stay safe.

The moral of this story is that you should invest in good tires for your vehicle and make sure that they are properly maintained. Your life and the lives of the motorists you share the road with depend on it.

Tire Blow Outs

Those of us who have spent a significant amount of time on the road has probably come across shredded black pieces of tires on the roadside. This debris is the result of a blown out tire and it likely made for a very scary and dangerous situation for a number of motorists. A poorly maintained or damaged car tire can experience a catastrophic failure, causing the tire to explode off of the rim and leave the driver with nothing but grinding metal for a wheel. This sends the vehicle out of control and only a skilled and experienced driver would be able to regain control and avoid disaster. There are a number of reasons why this happens such as:

  • Poor maintenance – improper inflation
  • Need replacement – tires are beyond their normal operating lifespan and have limited tread
  • Poor road conditions – potholes and other maintenance issues or objects in the roadway can puncture tires, causing a blowout

Tires are important components of a vehicle’s primary functionality and are also one of the integral components in ensuring our safety on the road. Maintaining the tires on your car, along with other features, is an important step you can take to increase safety and is a responsibility that we all share as drivers. If you or someone you know has been involved in a vehicle accident and believe tire maintenance to be the cause, please call our accident attorney in Sacramento immediately.

Discuss Your Tire-Caused Accident with an Accident Attorney in Sacramento

Have you been hurt in an accident? Contact our accident attorney in Sacramento to discuss your situation and allow us to help! If you are suffering because of an accident caused by another’s poor maintenance or negligence, you are entitled to just compensation. Our law firm offers a free consultation to all new clients. Call our offices at (916) 357-6767 or send us an email to schedule an appointment.

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If you have a Kidde NightHawk combination smoke/CO alarm installed in your house, immediately stop using it and replace it for a new alarm. Kidde’s technologies are supposed to be designed to protect you from threats, but unfortunately, Kidde had to recall their combination alarms.

Usually, when the battery life in the alarm is coming to an end, a chirping sound begins to indicate the battery needs to be replaced. With this alarm, however, the chirping sound fails to initiate, which leads the consumers in believing the alarm is still working, when it isn’t. It, therefore, defeats the point of having an alarm as it won’t alert you in case of a fire.

Kidde had sold 3.6 million alarms in the U.S. and about 1.5 million in Canada. No injuries have been reported yet, but if you had a combo smoke/CA alarm with the model number KN-COSM-IB and suffered an injury because of this product defect, you need to contact a skilled personal injury attorney who can evaluate your case and represent you in court.

The manufacture dates of these alarms range between June 1, 2004, and December 31, 2010. Its appearance is like most alarms – round, white and measures about 5-6 inches in diameter. It has a “Kidde” engraved on the front with the model number and manufacture date on the back. It is important you look at your smoke alarm to see if it fits the model number and lies in that date range. Kidde will replace the alarm or give you a discount.

If fires were a result of a product defect, such negligence should be held accountable. In addition to property damage, fires can also cause burns and scarring to victims or even death. If you suffered from an injury due to this product’s defect, contact Sacramento personal injury attorney at The Weinberger Law Firm immediately.

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Some vehicles, especially larger vehicles such as SUVs, pickup trucks, and semis, have higher centers of gravity. This leads to an increased likelihood for rollover incidents. Because rollover incidents may not necessarily involve a collision, it is possible that airbags will not deploy. This means individuals in the car may incur injury from being thrown against the inside of the car. If an individual is not wearing his or her seatbelt, the likelihood of injury increases, especially if ejected from the vehicle. Additionally, windows may break and the roof may collapse, increasing the severity of an injury.

Ejection from the vehicle causes most injuries and fatalities in rollover incidents. Most people who are killed are not wearing seat belts. If you or someone you know has been injured from a rollover accident, speak with accident attorneys in Sacramento to get legal advice.

In many instances, the initial cause of a rollover incident is driver negligence or poor road conditions. Individuals that incur injury or damage to property due to the occurrence of another driver’s rollover is likely to have a strong case for compensation or coverage of medical costs.

Other possible causes for a rollover include:

  1. A high-speed collision with another vehicle
  2. Taking a sharp turn too quickly
  3. A tire blow out at high speeds
  4. Running into a curb or another object in the road at high speeds
  5. Over-correction when a car is drifting out of its lane

Additional Considerations

Rollover incidents can be catastrophic with complex causes and multifaceted consequences. An attorney will complete a thorough investigation and might consider the following elements of the incident:

  • Speed or recklessness of the driver during the incident
    • If the driver was driving under the influence, engaging in distractions while driving, or driving at excessive speeds, this information could help your case.
  • Driver’s history of speeding or reckless driving
    • Establishing a history of recklessness could bolster your case.
  • Poor road maintenance
    • Encountering a pothole or black ice during high speeds may result in a rollover incident. Whoever is responsible for road maintenance, such as the government, could be held liable in these cases.
  • Poor road design
    • Excessively sharp turns in the road and poor warning signs may be determined to have caused a rollover incident. If this is the case, the government may be held liable.
  • Inadequate or erroneous vehicle maintenance
    • If a mechanic does improperly or insufficiently service a vehicle, that individual or the company he or she represents could be held liable for injuries and damages.
  • Illegal vehicle alterations
    • Some individuals alter their vehicle so as to have a higher center of gravity, such as by “lifting” the car frame or suspension. California has some of the strictest lift regulations in the country – setting the maximum lift height at 5 inches. If a vehicle involved in a rollover collision has an illegal lift height, this information could bolster your case.

There are many reasons vehicles with higher centers of gravity could end up causing a car accident. Speak with accident attorneys in Sacramento if you were involved in a car accident with an SUV or another large vehicle.

Related Car Defects

Should a vehicle have the misfortune of a rollover incident due to its higher center of gravity, defects in manufacturing and design could compound the damage and injury to those involved. If there is a defect in the design or manufacturing of the vehicle, the car company could be held liable for damages and injuries. Relevant car defects include:

  • Roof
    • Manufacturers should build cars with sound roofing, especially when the vehicle has a higher risk of rollover. Should the roof collapse during a rollover incident, individuals inside the car are likely to incur much more severe injury or even death.
  • Door Latches
    • A vehicle with defective door latches may result in the opening of doors during rollover, resulting in higher incidents of damage and injury, especially if seatbelts are faulty or not being worn.
  • Seat belts
    • If the buckle or emergency locking retractor of a vehicle’s seat belts malfunction, individuals within the car are much more likely to incur serious injury including ejection from the vehicle.
  • Safety Glass
    • California law requires all vehicles to have windshields with shatterproof safety glass. Should a vehicle be manufactured without such safety glass, an individual could be ejected through the front window of the vehicle.
  • Tires
    • Poorly designed or manufactured tires with inadequate tread increase the likelihood of a blown tire, which may result in a rollover incident. Ford Explorers had a high incidence of tire malfunction and subsequently caused thousands of catastrophic injuries. A large recall for the tires was issued.

Call Our Accident Attorneys in Sacramento to Discuss Your Vehicle Accident

Have you been involved in a car collision with an incidence of a rollover? It’s important you contact our experienced and knowledgeable accident attorneys in Sacramento to get the compensation you deserve. Call us at (916) 357 – 6767 for a free consultation.

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While unexplained car accidents are often ultimately attributed to a driver’s actions, authorities now know that previously unreported vehicle defects caused some of these wrecks. This has caused several cases to be re-examined and could help investigators come to the right conclusion the first time after a California accident that took place on New Year’s Eve.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration personnel are working with accident specialists from the California Highway Patrol to look into the possibility of a stuck accelerator after a fatal accident that killed five people in Ontario when a Toyota Yaris exited off of the eastbound 110 Freeway and struck a vehicle that was pulling out of a gas station. The federal investigators will help inspect the Yaris, and Toyota and Lexus vehicles have faced scrutiny in the past for unwanted acceleration.

A witness reported that one person was ejected from a car while firefighters tried to cut the vehicles to extricate the people inside. The Yaris was traveling at a high speed, and its driver said that the car accelerated uncontrollably before the crash happened. A CHP representative said that they will search for all possible factors, and drunk driving has already been eliminated as a cause of the accident.

When car accidents happen because of another motorist’s negligence, injured victims will often think about filing a personal injury lawsuit seeking compensation for their losses. If a defective auto part caused the accident, the manufacturer or supplier could be named as a defendant. An attorney can be of assistance in pinpointing the party or parties that should be held responsible.

Source: CBS Los Angeles, “5 Dead, Including 1 Child, In Ontario 2-Vehicle Crash”, Dec. 31, 2015

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In 1998, the federal government mandated that airbags be included in all new passenger vehicles. Although the change was relatively recent, most of us today couldn’t imagine cars without airbags.

Unfortunately, a significant number of drivers in California and around the country are traveling in vehicles with potentially dangerous and defective airbags. Japanese manufacturer Takata Corp. recently increased its recall to include 34 million vehicles in the United States. That number equates to as many as one in every seven cars.

So far, eight deaths and more than 100 injuries in the past decade have been attributed to the airbags, which can inflate too violently and explode. And the problem causing the defect can be traced back to 2001 when Takata began using a different propellant. After moving away from an inflation ingredient called tetrazole, Takata began using ammonium nitrate.

This move was controversial for a number of reasons. First, ammonium nitrate is rather unstable and unpredictable. The goal is to use a rapidly expanding gas that won’t explode, but ammonium nitrate can’t always deliver that. Explosions can happen, and according to investigators, they have been occurring. Finally, ammonium nitrate hasn’t regulated the way that other propellants are. Therefore, Takata was not bound by oversight or pre-approval in terms of how it used ammonium nitrate.

As with the General Motors recall scandal, it now appears as though Takata was aware of “serious safety and quality control lapses” as early as 2001. It’s unclear whether Takata’s alleged failure to address or acknowledge these issues will impact the company’s liability.

Airbags are a relatively simple idea, yet they provide an invaluable safety benefit – when they work correctly. When they malfunction as many of Takata’s airbags have, they can be even more threatening to life and safety than having no airbags at all.

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The General Motors recall scandal was one of the biggest news stories of 2014. Although the Takata airbag recall has since taken the media spotlight, the fallout from the GM scandal is still being felt nationwide. So far, 109 car accident fatalities have been linked to GM’s defective ignition switches and its decade-long delay in issuing a recall.

There is little debate about the fact that General Motors bears the vast majority of the blame for this tragedy. But many believe that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also failed in its duties to the American People. Recently, the Transportation Department released two internal reports echoing that sentiment.

The reports and top NHTSA officials note that more could have been done to further investigate evidence suggesting that the vehicles were dangerous. The NHTSA also needs to change the way that information is sought, collected and analyzed.

For most of its history, the agency has largely relied on automakers to police themselves and provide important information to the NHTSA when needed. But numerous recall scandals have proven that the honor system does not work. Car manufacturers are simply too invested in protecting their own profits.

Mark Rosekind, the new NHTSA administrator, noted that “the GM experience changed the culture here. What that means is challenge the information you’re getting, and challenge the assumptions you are pursuing.”

It’s important to point out that the NHTSA’s funding, resources, and authority have limited its ability to effectively regulate the auto industry. In the wake of the GM scandal, regulators are asking Congress to facilitate improvements in all three areas.

When it comes to ensuring the safety of consumer products, few products are as important to regulate as automobiles. Until or unless substantive changes are made and sustained, we can expect further recall scandals in the future.