Car accessories are massively popular because who does not love a personalized vehicle? Some are great, harmless additions that just add some fun personality to your vehicle while others pose serious threats according to recent reports.
One such add on accessory has to do with the wheel. Many have been starting to put decals on the wheel, either in just the center spot or over the vehicle’s maker logo. The decals are often some sort of plastic plate, commonly seen covered in rhinestones, glitter, and other sparkling decorations. The risk has actually been shown to be so severe that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released a statement earlier this week advising drivers to not purchase these or remove them from their wheel if they already have them on.
The reason for the risk? The wheel is where the airbag deploys.
Now you may be thinking, what do these decals have to do with the airbag? Well, if the airbag does need to be deployed, it would burst through the decals and most likely the adhesive of the decals would break and the accessory itself would break into smaller bits. This runs a risk as, in a car crash scenario with the air bag deploying, the force would cause the broken accessory to hit the driver. The pieces would act as sharp, little projectiles. Depending on where these then hit the driver, they could cause severe damage, even being fatal.
Furthermore, the interruption to the airbag’s typical pathway, pressure, and force could cause the airbag to malfunction and not act properly. If this happens, it also could cause severe damage, even fatality.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has had at least one reported serious injury of a driver getting injured due to this car accessory.
The driver that has a NHTSA reported incident lost sight in one eye due to rhinestones from the décor piece getting lodged in her eye. This happened when the airbag deployed shattered the plate, which sent the rhinestones flying around.
The NHTSA has stated that the less expensive these products are, the higher risk they pose. While they advise avoiding any such accessory piece for your vehicle, they strongly suggest against ones found on Amazon, Etsy, Shein, and Temu.
