How safe is your airbag?

Takata airbags are back in the news once more. And as one would expect, the news isn't good.

Despite the threat of punitive measures from the ACCC, car companies have been unable to convince owners of up to 20,000 affected vehicles in Australia to cease driving them and immediately arrange for the dangerous 'alpha' airbags to be replaced.

The inaction by a small band of consumers is hard to reconcile, given this is a major safety issue and could result in serious injury to either driver or front passenger, in the event of a crash.

In the face of apparent public apathy, the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) has weighed in directly, firing off a renewed safety campaign naming the mainstream brands of car now in the 'critical' category. Those brands are BMW, Holden, Honda, Mitsubishi and Toyota. BMW has the highest number of vehicles in the critical category.

State registration authorities have already refused to renew the registration of cars fitted with these Alpha units, and the peak body for the local automotive industry, the FCAI, is calling for cars fitted with the slightly safer 'Beta' units to be subject to the same restriction .

If compromised crash safety doesn't sound alarm bells for motorists, it should.

And the question arising in the minds of those owners who are possibly in possession of a car that has already passed through the hands of three or four previous owners since new is bound to be this: Is my car one of the 20,000 vehicles fitted with one of these dangerous devices?

Finding out is not that hard.

The very easiest way to learn whether your car needs to have either its driver-side airbag or passenger airbag replaced immediately is go to IsMyAirbagSafe.com.au.

You'll be asked to enter your state and vehicle registration number. If your car has been subject to a recall at any time in the past, the site will redirect you to another site run by the company that markets your car in Australia.

Here, the same information entered again (state and registration number) will confirm that your car is safe and the affected airbags have been replaced. Failing that, it will advise you that your car needs to be booked into the nearest dealer for rectification.

You may be wondering whether your car is even affected. If you haven't received notification from the car company that sold the car from new, that means it's safe, doesn't it?

Perhaps you're not the car's first owner. Perhaps you're not even the car's third owner. If your car is relatively old, it may have been on-sold to three or four different owners, and that may make it hard for the car company to track you down to bring the vehicle in for a replacement airbag.

If the car company can't easily contact the current owner, they'll try to determine the owner's postal address through the state registration authority. But if you've been slack updating your new residential and/or postal address, the registration authority won't know how to find you either.

Perhaps a friend or relative is using your car while you're on an extended working holiday overseas. Is your mail is being held at the post office, including the recall notice from the car company?

There could any number of reasons why a car could be getting around with a dangerous airbag on board – and the regular driver could be blissfully unaware of the risk..

Not necessarily... The automotive industry and consumers are actually responding quickly to the threat posed by the Alpha bags. Back in May of this year there were still around 734,000 vehicles regularly driven on Australian roads with these Alpha units.

By August that figure had fallen to 537,000.

While 20,000 vehicles remaining is still a large number, it's a major improvement in just a matter of months.

However, it doesn't end there.

While the risk of death or serious injury from Alpha bags is nearly neutralised, there are still close to half a million Beta units that also need replacing, although they are not as dangerous as the Alpha bags.

And just to add to the confusion, Volkswagen has recently announced a recall for a similar fault found in airbags supplied by TRW, not Takata.

If you persist in driving a car fitted with one or more Alpha frontal airbags (some cars are fitted with Takata units for both driver and front passenger), you face at least two consequences. One is certain – your car's registration will soon not be renewed by your state government registration and licencing authority.

The other consequence is not certain, but you or someone you know could be dicing with death .

When (or maybe 'if') your car is involved in a crash sufficiently severe to trigger one or more airbags, metal shards ('shrapnel') from the exploding inflator housing can shower the seat occupant. There have now been at least two deaths in Australia from airbag injuries related to this recall.

Owners of affected cars, even if they don't act out of fear for the safety of themselves, should be concerned for the safety of any passenger riding with them in the car. That could be your partner, son, daughter or grandchildren. Don't trust to your 'driving ability' to avoid a crash.

The message is crystal clear: get off your bum and get your car fixed.