DOT secretary says air bag safety comes ahead of Takata

Taking direct aim at Japanese air-bag maker Takata and its ongoing recalls, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said Tuesday that safety is more important than keeping a manufacturer in business.

Worries about whether Takata, a leading supplier to the auto industry, can remain solvent aren't important as protecting the public from air bags that spew deadly shrapnel when they deploy, accounting for 11 deaths and more than 100 injuries so far, he says.

Keeping Takata in business “can’t be the top concern we face,” Foxx said, speaking to a roundtable of reporters. “The airbags need to be recalled and we have a responsibility to recall them.”

Foxx said there is capability to meet the demand despite the recall.

“If for some reason Takata falls out of the equation, the manufacturers of the cars will be on the hook to ensure that the recalls happen,” Foxx said. “There is some redundancy there. But frankly, if that went into our calculation, I don’t think we would deserve to be called a safety agency.”

Foxx wasn’t sure how long it would take to alert car owners whether they were part of the additional 35 million to 40 million recalled last week, in addition to 28.8 million previously.

“I don’t have a time frame,” Foxx said.  “We’re still drilling down into that. We’re obviously trying to move as quickly as we can to ensure that the public gets as much information as soon as we can possibly get it out.”

With 8 million airbags repaired so far, Foxx said he won’t be satisfied until all repairs are completed.

“Until  we get to all of them I’m never satisfied,” Foxx said. “I think progress is being made, but we’ve got to keep our finger on it.”

Despite the expansion of the recall, about 50 million airbags with ammonium nitrate haven’t been recalled, according to Reuters. Two senators asked the department to reveal which cars those are. But Foxx said the science doesn’t indicate the need to move against the additional 50 million yet.

“While there have been some ruptures with those other airbags, they haven’t correlated with the type of problem we’re seeing with these other ones,” he says.