February 5, 2016

Continental Automotive Systems, a German company, recently issued a recall of cars containing Continental airbag units after the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) indicated that the airbags were potentially defective and could cause car accidents. Honda: One of the U.S. companies affected by the recall is Honda Motor Co. The car manufacturer is recalling 341,000 Accord models made between 2008 and 2010 so that the vehicles’ air bag control units can be replaced. However, Honda indicated that the company will not be able to replace airbags on all units because there are not enough replacement parts…

February 2, 2016

The federal government has taken a bold step to prohibit the use of microbeads in cleansing products. President Obama recently signed off on a law passed by the U.S. Congress last year. The law bans companies from selling certain products containing microbeads, an ingredient that has been found to be extremely harmful to the environment. Microbeads are often used to make soaps, body washes, toothpastes and other personal care products sold in stores throughout the United States. Many of these cleansing products use microbeads because the particles work as tiny scrubbers to help consumers remove oil and dirt from their…

January 21, 2016

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), a federal agency that handles product recalls and product safety alerts, recently issued an official statement on hoverboards. Elliot Kaye, the CPSC chairman, strongly emphasized the agency’s commitment to protecting U.S. consumers against personal injuries. Specifically, Kaye noted, consumers deserve to know the truth about the risks posed by hoverboards. In recent months, hoverboards have been all the rage as holiday gifts in New Jersey, New York and seemingly every other state across the country. However, the soaring popularity of the devices has come at a steep price: both monetarily and in terms of…

January 14, 2016

A grand jury recently handed down an indictment to Kevin Roper, the driver of a Wal-Mart truck that crashed into Tracy Morgan’s limousine, killing one person and seriously injuring several others. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart has seemingly minimized its own possible civil liability for the truck accident by reaching personal injury settlements with several of the accident victims. Roper potentially remains on the hook for civil damages, as well as criminal charges, because he was reportedly extremely fatigued while driving the Wal-Mart truck that slammed into Morgan’s limo on the New Jersey Turnpike on June 7, 2014. According to NJ and…

January 8, 2016

Hoverboards were all the rage among gift givers this holiday season, but they also presented a serious injury risk to recipients. Now a number of U.S. universities are taking preventative measures to stop students, and others, from sustaining hoverboard-related injuries on college campuses. At Kean University, which is located in Union, New Jersey, school officials recently notified all 14,000 students that hoverboards would not be allowed on campus. In an email sent to students, Len Dolan, the college’s managing director of fire safety, highlighted the possibility that a hoverboard can catch fire or explode through no fault of the…