Fiat Chrysler Jeep explosion sees campaigners ask for fuel tank recall to be re-investigated

In August 2017, a woman was killed when her Jeep SUV’s fuel tank combusted after she was rear-ended. The incident has raised further concerns that the 2013 recall over the Jeep’s fuel tank was not enough to protect motorists.

The victim’s 2007 Jeep was one of the 1.56 million sport utility vehicles that Fiat Chrysler agreed to install trailer hitches on to protect the fuel tanks. More than five years ago, Chrysler Group recalled 2.7 million sport-utility cars after the vulnerability was linked to the deaths of 51 people after crashes ignited fuel.

The fatal incident

In the accident, the victim was believed to have stopped at the traffic lights when another vehicle hit her from behind. The fuel from her Jeep caught fire, and she was tragically killed. Investigators suggested that excessive speed contributed to the incident, but no confirmation has been made as to how fast the other vehicle was going at the time of impact.

When regulators closed their investigations into the deaths some five years ago, they suggested that the trailer hitch being installed in the vulnerable vehicles provided “incremental safety benefits in certain low and moderate speed crash incidents,” but would “not necessarily be effective in the most severe crashes.”

Risks identified

The fuel tanks were situated between the rear suspension and the car bumpers, and regulators found that there was a huge risk of the fuel tank leaking and setting on fire when impacted in a crash. As such, a recall was carried out and regulators closed their investigations in November 2014.

The victim’s vehicle in this case had undergone the recall that should have made the vehicle safer.

Advocacy groups have been campaigning for regulators to re-investigate the Jeep recalls. One group believes that the recall did not do enough to eradicate the fire and explosion risks, and regulators have been urged to take a second look at the problem since February 2016.

“Here is what appears to be a tragic incident that highlights the exact problems we were concerned about 18 months ago,” said one spokesperson, “our fear then and our fear today remains to be that the fix is not sufficient.”

With rear-end crashes being so common, the risk of injury or death seems much too significant to ignore.

Denial

Fiat Chrysler on the other hand maintains that the vehicles do not have a defect and are complying with relevant safety requirements. A spokesman, Eric Mayne, wrote an email noting that the company “extends its deepest sympathies to those affected by this tragedy” but was keen to assert that the vehicle meets or exceeds all applicable safety standards, “including those that test fuel-system integrity in rear impacts.”

While it’s understandable that Fiat Chrysler may want to protect its image and not to encourage people to make claims against them, they still have a responsibility to ensure their products are safe. In the event that their vehicles carry an elevated risk to their consumers’ health and lives, Fiat Chrysler should surely warn them and take appropriate action to reduce the risks.