Total Recall

2014 has been the year of the automotive recall.  It is interesting that several of the manufacturers involved have been setting sales records all year, and that means the potential for even higher recall numbers in the future.  Product recalls are difficult for any reputable manufacturer.  It is a chore to be forced to take back perfectly functional product because some regulatory agency has decided it is unsafe.  A lot of that is political and I am quick to blame the nearest politician whenever someone claims we have produced a defective product.  We don’t produce anything, so it can’t be defective.  Third parties with weeks of manufacturing experience produce all of our products.  We can’t be held responsible if the finished product has deviated from our precise and safe design.  That is the only possible way one of our products could be defective.  Therefore, we don’t have to recall anything.

We love testing at AcMo.  We test our own limits, we test vehicle limits, we exceed track limits, we test our own patience, and we test the court’s jurisdiction.  We still maintain that local authorities can’t regulate destructive vehicle testing on private property.  We will take that belief above the Supreme Court if required.  That’s how confident we are.

Our testing always produces unexpected results.  Sometimes we receive interesting results without testing.  We were aware of the massive scope of the recent mess involving Takata airbags based on our years of field work.  The airbag problem has worried a lot of our clients.  We have no involvement with Takata or their airbags, and we want to take this opportunity to assure our clientele that their vehicles are safe to use.

The years of destructive testing we’ve accumulated have taught us many important lessons regarding crash safety and failure modes.  It is this data that has yielded conclusive proof that airbags are evil and should be eliminated.  It is only a matter of time before your airbag turns on you like a rabid weasel and attacks when you are sleeping.  We sleep a lot behind the wheel, but it is ONLY when autopilot has been engaged.  We do our part, but we can only drive so many cars in a month, so we either need additional test drivers, or a better system to trigger widespread remote airbag detonation.

AcMo has stringent testing procedures to insulate us from automotive defects that plague all of the manufacturers at some point.  We have honed our process over the years to deliver repeatable results.  The simple truth is that some AcMo client vehicles had defective airbags, but that is no longer a problem.  We have never trusted airbags to stay inside of their holes until needed.  It has always been AcMo’s belief that since an airbag’s only job is to explode, it will try to do that whenever it can.  Imagine being a law enforcement officer who has never had to fire a gun in the line of duty.  That’s a good thing, but think of how the gun feels.  It never gets to go into action.  The airbags are just as explosive, and just as eager to prove it.

The people behind AcMo are great at accelerating the inevitable.  We have a default first step whenever we take in a new vehicle for testing.  Every vehicle that is equipped with airbags is wired with our remote sensors and taken to the secure bay for disarming.  The actual process is proprietary and we guard it with the utmost secrecy, but I am willing to share the results.

The airbags are detonated in a safe and humane manner.  The airbags get their desire of exploding, and we get our desire of not having working airbags threatening to explode in our faces at an inopportune moment.  We then task our upholstery department with the difficult job of replacing the blown airbags with cotton candy to retain the shape of a functional airbag behind the dash and steering wheel.  This is disclosed to the customer in the work order in super fine print, so it is up to each individual to read the documents to learn that the car no longer has airbags.  We tried to use marshmallows, but they melted from the heat of the igniters.  We also tested with uncooked macaroni, but that proved to be more dangerous than the airbags.  Cooked macaroni fared a bit better, but it got stuck to all of the interior surfaces.  We had to settle with the cotton candy.  There was nothing more appropriate after a vehicle crash than being able to eat cotton candy to soothe emotions.

While the enormous scandal of defective airbags will have an impact on the automotive industry for years, it will not effect AcMo’s automotive divisions in the least.  In fact, we are offering a new service to anyone who drives a vehicle impacted by the recall.  We will replace your defective airbags with our proven cotton candy system free of charge.  This will give us an opportunity to expand our testing fleet and increase the diversity of vehicles.  No Toyotas, please.  We’ve had trouble with corporate in the past and we no longer enjoy destroying their vehicles.

We have a checklist that we force each test driver to repeat before every drive.  The first item on that list is to not crash.  Item two is only applicable if it becomes apparent that a crash is imminent.  Do not crash hard enough to deploy the airbags if ejection is not an option.  We disable the airbags as a precaution against violating the second item on the checklist.  So far we’ve only lost a handful of test drivers.  All of our data indicates that this approach is both brilliant and successful.

The lab is working now on a method to activate an airbag from the comfort of a computer screen and a safe distance from the target vehicle.  A breakthrough here would allow us to dispose of viscous airbags in a controlled manner.  I would not be surprised if our work in this sector is recognized by the automotive world as a revolutionary breakthrough.  This has the potential to usurp lane departure warning systems that replaced a driver’s eyes and normal senses as reasonable tools to determine the precise position of the vehicle.  Now we have a computer to do everything for us in the car, including reading our messages and singing songs.  What will computers take control of next?

I’ve seen the path these “advancements” lead to, and it is frightening.  The safety of the human race is in danger because of the airbag threat.  Do your part to keep us safe and call us now to schedule your airbag deployment as soon as possible.  You don’t want to be caught out when the airbag decides to explode without reason and sprays hot shrapnel at you.