The Safety Forum Reports on 'The Watchdog's' Seat Belt Buckle Gathering
21 April 2000
The Safety Forum Reports on 'The Watchdog's' Seat Belt Buckle GatheringARLINGTON, Va., April 19 South Carolina trial lawyer J. Kendall Few, dubbed "The Watchdog" by Automotive News, is again sniffing through the salvage yards of the world to enhance his collection of vehicle seat belt buckles, which now numbers more than 2000. Having determined that some seat belt buckles fail in crashes more often than others, Few has set out to document which automakers used improved buckle designs and which automakers used failure-prone designs. He is chronicling his travels with periodic dispatches of Watchdoggerel to The Safety Forum's transportation safety section (http://www.safetyforum.com/aor). Few is The Safety Forum's "Attorney of Record" for Seat Belt Buckles (http://www.safetyforum.com/sbb). Seat belt buckles can unlatch during a crash when the latching mechanism is overcome by crash induced inertial forces. As Few and other plaintiffs' attorneys unravel the mysteries of why some buckles do better than others, they discover that patent literature reveals that seat belt buckle and vehicle manufacturers have known for years that simple design changes can make buckles less susceptible to failure. The better belts have design features known as "locks for the latch" that make them "g-resistant," according to one patent. Few began his international quest for seat belt buckles in 1998. So far he has gathered seat belt buckles from salvage yards in England, France, Germany, Spain, Estonia, Russia, Finland, Switzerland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina and from countless salvage yards in the U.S. The earliest example of a "g-resistant" buckle design that Few has discovered was on a 1972 Australian GM pick-up truck. However, the "g- resistant" design did not come into widespread use until the mid 1980's. Many automakers still fail to use g-resistant buckle designs. Few disembarked on his most recent buckle gathering trip shortly after a South Carolina jury reconvened to consider punitive damages for the death of a young man fatally ejected from a Ford Ranger after his seat belt buckle failed in a rollover. Earlier the jury had awarded the man's widow and child $1.4 million in compensatory damages. The claims for punitive damages were settled for an undisclosed amount. Few, who also litigates such cases, was the lead witness in the Ford case. Automotive News, the grande dame of auto industry publications, labeled Few "The Watchdog" in a recent article that explored the role of trial lawyers in promoting vehicle safety (http://www.safetyforum.com/cgi-bin/viewer.cgi?format=gif&id=AL&page=1&ss=4). Reprints of the article are available, at no charge, from The Safety Forum, P.O. Box, 470, Arlington, Virginia 22210-0470. CONTACT: Ralph Hoar of Ralph Hoar and Associates, 703-841-8384, for The Safety Forum.
