There are many times that a passenger will kick back in the car to take a nap while being driven to his or her destination. While passenger seats and driver's seats do recline, they should never be adjusted to this position while the car is in motion. According to Slate Magazine, reclining a seat while the car is in motion adjusts the position of the seat belt.
Recently, a woman reported that because she had her seat reclined, the seatbelt was riding high on her stomach. When she was involved in an accident, the seatbelt left a welt around her rib cage and caused internal bleeding from a lacerated spleen. The woman also suffered three cracked ribs because of the position of the seatbelt when the vehicle hit the car in front.
Back in 1988, government safety officials became aware of the dangers of reclining seats in moving cars. Medical journals have researched the subject and determined that it can often be dangerous to relax your with seat in a reclined position. Still, car manufacturers have never been required to warn passengers of the dangers of reclining the seat.
While airbags can be deadly when a seat is reclined, manufacturers are not required to add a warning label about this anywhere within the car. Back in the 1980s. The National Transportation Safety Board studied 167 crashes where the passengers wore seatbelts.
The study proved that seat belts were only a safety mechanism when they were worn correctly. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that one of the main ways to were a seatbelt incorrectly is by reclining the seat inside the vehicle. The board claims that this can be a fatal decision. In the fact, research has proven that some men and women who died in car accidents could have been saved if they hadn't been sleeping in a reclined seat at the time of the accident.
The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration believes that most people who ride with the seat back in the car are not aware of the risks associated with this decision. They figure that if the seat is designed to recline backwards, then there is no reason they should not be allowed to benefit from this feature. Some owner's manuals warn against using this feature on the car, but most unfortunately do not.
After the discoveries, most government agencies never took action. In 2001, the Journal of Trauma published a study which declared that reclining chairs can lead to significant dangers. In 2005, a lawsuit gained attention when a victim of a car accident sued the automobile mogul Ford after an accident regarding an ambulance.
The woman who filed the lawsuit claims that she was asleep with her seat tilted all the way back and her feet on the dashboard when the driver of her car hit the ambulance which was stopped at a red light. Because the seat was reclined, she flipped forward, and the seatbelt tightened as her torso flipped over. The movement severely injured her spinal cord and left her with permanent paralysis.
The plaintiff went up against Ford, claiming that the warning in the owner's manual was not enough. The plaintiff's attorney then showed the court a commercial by Ford where a cowboy is riding in a Ford vehicle with his feet propped up on the dashboard and the seat reclined. The lawyers brought in an expert who declared that fewer than 5% of all car owners actually read the manual that comes with their vehicle. As a result, the plaintiff was able to gain a $12.9 million settlement for her injuries.
In another trial, a victim was able to achieve a $59 million verdict when both of his legs were amputated after he was riding in a car with the seat reclined. He gained his settlement from Toyota for similar reasons as the Ford case. The victim claimed that there should have been warning labels in the car. The plaintiff also argued that the car manufacturer could take safety precautions to avoid the use of reclining seats, such as installing alarms that go off when the seat is reclined or programming cars so that they will not move until all seats are upright.
If you were injured because of a reclining seat in a car accident, then you may have the right to seek compensation from the car manufacturer like these plaintiffs did. You should hire an accomplished and trusted car accident lawyer to assist you in your goal and to advocate for you in the courts. With the right attorney on your side, you may be able to obtain a multi-million dollar settlement like the plaintiffs in these cases!