Customizing automobiles is much more fun. Adding a little personal flair can help anything feel more like your own. However, some changes can jeopardize not just a car’s functionality but also its safety. The most harmful are those that can interfere with your vehicle’s safety systems. The NHTSA is spotlighting the stick-on emblems available to embellish your steering wheel.
As innocent as they appear, the NHTSA warns that they might become dislodged, damaged, and hurled off the steering wheel when the airbag deploys. It has received a complaint of a crash in which two pieces of a badge became trapped in the person’s neck and face after the airbag was deployed.
Aside from the projectile potential of these add-ons, the NHTSA warns that placing anything over your airbags may prevent them from functioning properly. Automakers carefully build their panels and airbag systems to open precisely, and installing anything that could hinder this could also be dangerous.
The good news is that this is a straightforward issue to resolve. Ideally, avoid getting one of these decal badges in the first place. However, if you have already purchased and installed one, uninstall it. Grab on and rip it off, or use a screwdriver to pry it free if it is genuinely jammed on. In any case, it does not sound like it’ll be very well attached.
