How Unsafe Firestone Tires Took, And Shattered, People’s Lives

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Posted on 7th January 2011 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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USA Today put on a face on the victims of faulty Firestone tires by interviewing their surviving families. It makes for a compelling story.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/consumer/autos/mauto974.htm

Federal regulators claim that accidents involving Firestone tires caused 148 deaths and more than 525 injuries, according to USA Today.

In one of the cases described in the article, Eve Monson of Albuquerque, N.M., talks about her granddaughter, Lori Erickson. The 25-year-old and her husband Scott, 28, were killed on Memorial Day when the tread on a Firestone tire on her Ford Explorer came off. The vehicle rolled six five times.

Lori, who was five months pregnant, was killed in the accident, as was her husband.

Monson and Scott’s mother, Christine Demijohn, remain devastated by the deaths of their loved ones. Demijohn is angry at Ford and Firestone, because she believes they were aware of the problems with the tires. Her family has planted crosses at the spot where the accident took place.

Because of her agony, Monson is now on antidepressants. And she has dreams where her granddaughter shows up on her doorstep, saying she is finally back from a trip to Europe.

If that isn’t wish fulfillment, what is?   

        

Ford Ordered To Pay Family Of Mets Prospect $131 Million By Jury In Fatal Explorer Rollover Accident

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Posted on 7th September 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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 A Mississippi jury awarded the family of New York Mets prospect Brian Cole, who was killed in an accident while driving an Explorer, $131 million from Ford Motor Co. 

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68203520100903

This isn’t the first settlement of its kind that Ford had had to pay. It reportedly has shelled out a large sum of money for settlements in wrongful death cases involving its Explorer, which has a long history of fatal accidents.

 The attorney for Cole’s family, Tab Turner, told Reuters said that after the jury rendered its verdict, the family reached a settlement with Ford. The terms of that settlement were’s disclosed, but the case in general was worth more than some other rollover lawsuits because of Cole’s profession as a ball player.

Ford had argued that Cole had been speeding, driving 80 mph, when he went off the road in a 2001 rollover accident and was killed. Cole, 22, wasn’t wearing a seat belt. He died in the Florida Panhandle while on his way from home to Mississippi.

The auto maker also contended that it would have won the case if the jury hadn’t excluded some evidence.  

“This was a tragic accident and our sympathy goes out to the Cole family, for their loss, but it was unfair of them to blame Ford,” a spokeswoman for the auto maker said.  

http://www.americanbankingnews.com/2010/09/07/ford-motor-co-nyse-f-ordered-to-pay-131-million-settlement/

Ford had ended its lengthy partnership with Firestone in 2001, the same year as Cole’s accident, blaming the tiremaker for rollovers and blowouts that caused a number of fatal accidents involving the Explorer. 

That SUV seemed to have left a legacy of death. The details and fatal statistics involving the Explorer are chronicled in a book by Adam L. Penenberg, “Tragic Indifference: One Man’s Battle with the Auto Industry Over the Danger of SUVs.”    

Some of the data about the Explorer from Penenberg’s book were plucked out, and credited, by this posting on TheModerateVoice.com. 

http://themoderatevoice.com/85085/ford-settles-after-jury-awards-131m-in-roll-over-accident/