The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) has warned that tougher Government regulations may be required in order to remove vehicles equipped with dangerous Takata airbags from the roads.

With less than two months to go until the deadline for vehicle manufacturers to replace faulty airbags in all affected vehicles, FCAI Chair Tony Weber said he was expecting to achieve a 100 per cent completion rate by December 31.

However, should individuals or manufacturers choose to not take the urgent recall notice seriously, Weber warned that the Government may need to get involved to forcibly take affected vehicles off the road.

“By January 1, I believe that we will have met our obligations under the recall notice,” said Weber. “Most of the airbags will have been replaced. People who refuse to have their airbags replaced, we cannot steal their cars and replace them.

“They (the Government) need to deregister cars when people refuse to come in. They need to give information about where these cars are.

“The important message to consumers is: This is about your health, the health of other people, and the safety of people who ride in your vehicle. This is absolutely free, and people need to get their airbags replaced.”

The strategy of deregistering vehicles has already been used successfully for vehicles fitted with the dangerous Alpha-type airbags, which were deemed as having a severe risk of unexpected deployment and injury occurring.

As of June of this year, approximately 155,000 vehicles equipped with faulty Takata airbags were yet to be repaired, with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission estimating that 3,000 vehicles were being located and repaired every day.

Weber also made it clear that further steps would be taken to ensure all remaining vehicles were located and repaired should the need arise; such was the importance of eradicating the potentially hazardous issue.

“We want everyone to take this seriously – whether it’s consumers, or whether it’s people within government – we need to all address this because this is not a ‘car industry’ issue by itself.

“This is a public health issue that needs to be addressed, and everyone needs to take it seriously.”

The possibility has also been raised for owners of known affected vehicles to not be allowed to re-register their vehicle until the issue has been rectified.

Source: Go Auto | Takata recall not simply a ‘car industry’ issue

28 October 2020