BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: AB 1854
SENATOR MARK DESAULNIER, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: Brownley
VERSION: 5/3/12
Analysis by: Carrie Cornwell FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: June 12, 2012
SUBJECT:
Airbag reinstallation
DESCRIPTION:
This bill makes it illegal to rewire an airbag safety system to
show that the airbag is functional when it is not.
ANALYSIS:
AB 1471 (Havice), Chapter 449, Statutes of 1999 made it illegal
for a person knowingly to install or reinstall for compensation,
sell, or distribute a previously deployed vehicle inflatable
restraint system ("airbag") and subjected the person to a
misdemeanor punishable by a $5,000 fine and a one-year jail
sentence or both.
This bill expands existing law to include within the above
misdemeanor:
Rewiring, tampering with, altering, or modifying a vehicle's
computer system or airbag system, including its on-board
system performance indicators, to show falsely that the airbag
system is working.
Knowingly distributing or selling a previously deployed airbag
component that will no longer meet the manufacturer's form or
function for proper operations.
COMMENTS:
Purpose . Federal law requires car makers in the United States
to install both driver- and front passenger-side airbags because
they have been shown to help prevent injuries during a crash.
In some areas of the state, however, law enforcement discovered
AB 1854 (BROWNLEY) Page 2
that some repair shops were installing or reinstalling,
previously deployed airbag systems in their entirety, an act
that frequently resulted in fatal or near fatal injuries when
the airbags failed to function properly in a crash. To address
this problem, the Legislature passed AB 1471 (Havice) in 1999,
which made it a crime to knowingly install or reinstall, for
compensation, any previously deployed airbag that is part of an
inflatable restraint system.
Proponents of this bill report that in order to get around this
existing law, some unscrupulous salvage vehicle rebuilders are
now no longer installing an entire previously deployed airbag
system. Instead they are using individual components from
previously deployed airbag systems and rewiring the onboard
computer so that it appears as though the vehicle's airbag
system is functioning properly when it in fact it is not. The
author notes that judges have rebuffed the efforts of
prosecutors to take legal action against such fraudulent
activity because of the lack of a legal prohibition against such
actions.
Assembly Votes:
Floor: 73 - 0
Appr: 17 - 0
Trans: 14 - 0
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the committee before noon on
Wednesday, June 6,
2012)
SUPPORT: Los Angeles District Attorney's Office (sponsor)
California Police Chiefs Association
Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety
Crime Victims Action Alliance
Consumer Federation of California
OPPOSED: None received.