The north has “no time to waste” over the issue of faulty airbags manufactured by Japanese company Takata, Cyprus Turkish Chamber of Mechanical Engineers chairman Ayer Yarkiner said on Friday.
Addressing ‘transport minister’ Erhan Arikli as an invitee to the north’s transport services commission, he called for a law to be passed to “place responsibility onto the vehicle users” and ensure that vehicles fitted with faulty airbags are “banned from traffic”.
He added that the law should ensure that airbags are inspected before any harm can be done.
Additionally, he told Arikli that Takata airbags “explode like hand grenades”, and warned that there are people who will be impacted by the airbags “other than those who we have already detected”.
Takata airbags suffer a fault related to exposure to high levels of heat or humidity, with which means they have a tendency to explode when released under such circumstances.
This explosion shoots the airbag’s metal inflator outwards and in the direction of the person it was designed to protect, potentially causing further injuries or, in some cases, death.
In the Republic, Transport Minister Alexis Vafeades had earlier this month decreed the recall of over 80,000 cars which are fitted with Takata airbags, all of which are to be replaced over a period of eight months.
The transport ministry “recommends” that those with recalled vehicles do not use them and use other vehicles and other methods of transport. However, there is no obligation for people to follow this recommendation, and motorists are not at risk of paying a fine for using their vehicles.
Vafeades went on to say that the aim of having all the airbags replaced is “ambitious”, but that “it has to be done”.
In the north, Honda distributor Levent Motor told news website Kibris Postasi that it had attempted to contact 10,000 vehicle owners over the replacement of faulty airbags, which they said would be done free of charge.
Honda drivers in the north are able to find out whether their cars are impacted by the issue and thus eligible for a free airbag replacement on Honda’s northern Cyprus website, www.hondakibris.com.
As of December last year, Honda had replaced the airbags of 300 vehicles in the north.
The high-profile death of 24-year-old Kyriakos Oxinos in January 2023 is believed to have been caused in part by a faulty airbag, with it also believed that the death of 19-year-old Styliani Giorgalli in October may have been caused by a faulty Takata airbag.
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