Recall Sought of Air Bags in Some Nissans

A consumer advocacy group is urging federal investigators to order a recall of passenger-side air bags in some Nissan Motor Co. Altimas because of blinding eye injuries linked to inflation of the devices.

Public Citizen, which says the air bags in the Altimas from 1994 and early in the 1995 model year have a permanent eye-injury rate many times that of other cars, has scheduled a news conference for today at which two injured passengers will speak.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began looking at the bags in March of last year, citing five complaints it had received and 24 incidents brought to its attention by a plaintiff’s lawyer. The agency upgraded its preliminary probe to an engineering analysis a year ago, citing 32 eye injuries, 15 of which were serious enough to require days of hospitalization or resulted in partial or full loss of vision in a least one eye after 12 months. About 250,000 of the vehicles are still on the road.

“We are asking them [the traffic safety agency] to hurry up and get this air bag out of the fleet,” said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen.

Nissan spokesman Scott Vazin said that eye injuries related to air bags are nothing new and that they are not unique to Altimas.

“We are working diligently and responsibly with NHTSA, and it’s premature to talk publicly about an ongoing investigation,” Vazin said.

Most of those hurt were wearing seat belts at the time of injury, the agency said. Many injuries and deaths linked to other air bags have involved unrestrained occupants coming too close to the inflating bag due to precrash braking or the crash itself.