In a few seconds, a crash, a split-second airbag deployment, and a devastating brain injury can turn an ordinary drive into a felony case with years of prison on the line. You may remember the airbag going off too hard, too late, or in a way that did not make sense, but now everyone is focused only on your speed, alcohol level, or a split-second decision you made. It can feel like the system has already decided this was all your fault.
If you are facing serious charges in Houston after a crash with a brain injury, the way that airbag deployed is not a side detail. Airbags are finely timed devices that are supposed to reduce the forces on your head, not create or worsen brain trauma. When a unit is out of spec, even by a little, it can change how severe the injury is, which can change the charge and the potential sentence the prosecutor is pushing for.
At The Law Offices of Jed Silverman, we look past the surface story in serious crash cases. Our team is led by Attorney Jed Silverman, who is Board Certified in Criminal Law in Texas, and we regularly work with technical evidence, medical records, and forensic reports in Houston courts. In this guide, we explain how airbags are supposed to work, how manufacturing variance can turn them into a problem, and how that technical truth can factor into a focused criminal defense strategy.
How Airbag Deployment Can Turn a Crash into a Brain Injury Case
Modern airbags are designed to fire in a narrow window of time to cushion your head and upper body during a crash. When sensors in the vehicle detect a sudden change in speed, they send a signal to the airbag control module. That module runs a quick calculation based on the crash force and direction, then decides whether to trigger the inflator. If it decides yes, an igniter sets off a gas-producing charge, the bag fills, and your head and chest should meet a soft, controlled surface instead of hard plastic or glass.
All of this happens in a fraction of a second. In many vehicles, the time from crash detection to a fully inflated bag is measured in tens of milliseconds. The goal is to catch your head while it is still moving forward, then slow it down over just a few more inches of travel. By stretching out that deceleration, the airbag is supposed to reduce the peak forces that reach your skull and brain. When an airbag does its job, it often turns a potentially fatal impact into something survivable or reduces a severe brain injury to a milder concussion.
In serious crashes around Houston, the presence and severity of a brain injury usually drive the most serious charges. Allegations such as intoxication assault, aggravated assault using a vehicle, or manslaughter depend heavily on whether someone suffered what Texas law calls serious bodily injury. When the prosecutor points to a devastating brain injury, they use that harm to justify higher charges, higher bond, and harsher sentences. If a defective airbag contributed to that brain injury, that matters for how responsibility is assigned.
Because we routinely deal with injury-driven charges in Harris County and surrounding courts, we know how quickly brain trauma can shift a case from a traffic offense to a felony. We also know that most crash reports and initial charging decisions assume the airbag did what it was supposed to do. Our role in the right case is to question that assumption and examine whether an airbag problem turned a bad crash into a life-altering brain injury case.
What Manufacturing Variance in Airbags Really Means
When people hear “defective airbag,” they often think of a massive recall or a bag that never deployed at all. In reality, many dangerous airbags are not obviously dead on arrival. They are units that slipped outside their intended tolerances somewhere in the manufacturing process. Every component on a production line is built within a target range. Manufacturers expect a small amount of variation, but they set limits on how far any individual part should drift from the ideal.
In an airbag system, that concept of tolerance covers several critical parts. A crash sensor might be designed to trigger when the vehicle experiences a particular level of deceleration, but the sensor electronics are manufactured within a range. An inflator cartridge is filled with propellant, but the amount in each cartridge can vary slightly from the target. The firing circuit that sends current to the igniter can have small differences in resistance and timing. Even the stitching and vent holes in the fabric of the bag itself are subject to manufacturing variation.
Most of the time, these tolerances stay within acceptable limits, and the system behaves as intended. Problems arise when one sensor, inflator, or module ends up outside that allowed range. For example, if a sensor needs a slightly higher force than it should to activate, it may trigger late. If there is too much gas in the inflator, the bag can fill harder and faster than it was designed to. If the timing circuit is off, the bag might not be fully inflated when your head reaches it, or it might be at peak pressure just as your face makes contact.
Manufacturers monitor these issues using statistical quality control. They check samples from each batch or lot of parts and track how many fall inside or outside the desired range. When defects spike in a particular production run, they may flag that lot, rework parts, or quietly tighten controls. Those charts and batch records can later show that, during the period when your vehicle’s airbag module was built, more sensors or inflators than usual were out of spec. That does not prove your specific unit was bad on its own, but it can support a defense argument that your airbag was more likely to be defective than the paperwork suggests.
Because we handle serious criminal cases rather than just reading about these systems in a manual, we understand that real-world manufacturing is never perfect. At The Law Offices of Jed Silverman, when a brain injury is central to the charge, we consider whether batch and quality records might reveal that the safety device meant to protect the occupant was itself part of the harm. That is a very different picture from the simple story that the crash alone explains everything.
How Deployment Timing and Inflation Problems Lead to Brain Trauma
To see how a small variance can matter, it helps to look more closely at how timing and inflation interact with your head and neck in a crash. In a typical frontal collision, your body continues moving forward while the car suddenly slows down. The seat belt restrains your chest, and the airbag is supposed to meet your head as it moves forward, then slow it down smoothly. That requires the bag to be in the right place, with the right firmness, at the right moment.
Late deployment is one common failure mode. If a sensor triggers just a fraction of a second slower than designed, the bag may not fully inflate until after your head has already moved farther forward. You can end up striking the steering wheel or dashboard first, then hitting a still inflating bag. That sequence can create two separate impacts and higher peak forces on your skull. In side impacts, a late side curtain airbag can allow your head to hit the window or pillar before any cushion is there.
Early deployment creates a different problem. If the bag fires when your head has barely begun to move, it can be near full pressure just as your face reaches it. Instead of catching and cradling your head as it slows, the bag can act more like a solid object striking you at speed. Overinflation adds to this risk. Too much gas in the inflator, or vents that do not release pressure as quickly as they should, can produce a harder, more violent impact between your head and the bag.
Underinflation or incomplete deployment can also be dangerous. If the bag does not fill fully, your head may plow through it and collide with the steering wheel, door frame, or roof rail underneath. The visual impression may be that “the airbag went off,” yet it did not provide the designed protection. In all of these situations, the resulting motion of your head can be more abrupt or involve more twisting than in a properly cushioned event. That kind of rapid deceleration and rotation increases the risk of a diffuse axonal injury, a form of internal brain damage that doctors sometimes describe as the brain being shaken and stretched inside the skull.
In our work on serious injury cases, we pay close attention to how the injuries line up with the reported crash forces and damage to the vehicle. When the brain injury pattern looks worse than you would expect from the severity of the crash, or when multiple occupants experience unexpected head trauma, it raises the question of whether the restraint system amplified the harm. Exploring that question is not about blaming the car for everything. It is about making sure you are not unfairly held responsible for a level of injury that a defective airbag helped create.
Common Assumptions About Airbags That Can Hurt Your Defense
Most people, including many professionals, start from a simple assumption. If the airbag deployed, it must have done what it was supposed to do. Under that view, any serious brain injury must be due to how fast you were going, whether you were impaired, or some other choice you made. That assumption quietly shapes how officers write reports, how crash reconstructions are framed, and how prosecutors explain the case to a jury.
In many Houston cases, police and reconstruction specialists do not directly test the airbag system at all. They record that the bags deployed, note whether there are visible tears, and move on. Their models often assume a properly functioning restraint system. When prosecution witnesses testify later, they may build their causation opinions on that same assumption without ever reviewing batch records, module data, or an independent analysis of the airbag components.
For someone facing charges, these shortcuts matter. If everyone assumes the airbag performed perfectly, then the brain injury becomes, in their minds, a straightforward and predictable outcome of your conduct. That can support harsher charges and stronger arguments for punishment. If, however, evidence shows that a manufacturing variance made your airbag deploy late, too hard, or not fully, the story changes. The same crash might still be serious, but the pathway to that level of brain trauma is more complicated than the prosecution suggests.
At The Law Offices of Jed Silverman, we are used to challenging baked in assumptions in complex cases. We do not accept “the airbag went off” as proof that it worked correctly. Instead, in the right case, we ask what data, records, and physical evidence exist to show what the airbag actually did and whether that performance matches what the manufacturer promised on paper.
Using Quality Control Records to Prove a Substandard Airbag Unit
When there is a realistic question about an airbag’s behavior, the next step is to understand what records might show whether your unit was substandard. Airbag modules and their components do not come off the line one by one in isolation. They are produced in batches. Each batch is associated with a particular production date range, plant, and sometimes even specific shifts or machines. Manufacturers usually track how many parts from each batch passed or failed their internal tests.
Those records fall under what engineers call statistical quality control. For example, a plant might test a sample of inflators from each lot to measure how quickly gas is produced and how much pressure is reached. They may chart those results and look for points that fall outside the planned range. If a higher number of inflators fail in a particular week, that shows up as a spike in the data. Similar sampling can be done for sensor performance, firing circuits, or even fabric seam strength.
In a criminal case, getting these records is not automatic. Manufacturers sometimes resist broad requests, especially from individuals. A defense team that understands what to ask for and why can use targeted subpoenas and court orders to seek specific categories of documents. This might include lot and batch records for the airbag module tied to your vehicle’s VIN, any internal investigations or technical bulletins for that model, and data on failures or customer complaints from the same production period.
By matching the identifiers on your airbag module to these records, it may be possible to show that it came from a batch with an unusual rate of defects. Combined with what the crash data and medical records show, that can support the argument that your particular unit was more likely to be out of spec. In some cases, the module itself can be removed and examined by an independent engineer to see whether its behavior matches the manufacturer’s own specifications.
Our approach at The Law Offices of Jed Silverman is to build a defense that is as evidence driven as the case against you. When there is a credible reason to question an airbag’s performance in a serious brain injury prosecution, we look at what technical and manufacturing records may exist and how to lawfully obtain and use them in a Houston courtroom. This is not a standard step in every case, but when it fits the facts, it can add an important layer to your defense.
How Defective Airbags Affect Causation and Liability in Houston Criminal Cases
In Texas, many of the most serious driving related charges turn on whether the State can prove both a certain mental state and that your conduct caused serious bodily injury or death. In cases involving brain injuries, charges such as intoxication assault, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon where the vehicle is treated as the weapon, or manslaughter often rise or fall on causation. The prosecutor typically argues that but for your driving or your alleged intoxication, the victim would not have suffered that level of harm.
When an airbag defect is part of the picture, it can complicate that story. If evidence shows that a substandard airbag unit worsened the injury beyond what a properly functioning system would have produced, that can support arguments that the State has overstated your role in causing the particular severity of the brain trauma. Depending on the facts, this may affect whether a charge premised on serious bodily injury is appropriate, or whether a jury can be sure beyond a reasonable doubt that your conduct alone accounts for the outcome the law is punishing.
These issues often come up in plea discussions as well as at trial. A prosecutor who realizes that a defective safety device helped create the level of harm at issue may view the case differently than one who believes the crash and your choices fully explain the outcome. That does not mean charges disappear, but it can influence which charges they pursue, what plea offers they consider, and how a judge views the appropriate sentence if there is a conviction.
Because Attorney Jed Silverman is Board Certified in Criminal Law and our team has a strong record of trying complex cases, we know how to integrate technical causation evidence into a defense that fits Texas law. We also understand how local prosecutors and judges in Houston tend to respond to defect based arguments. That local experience helps us decide when it is worth investing in this kind of investigation and how to present the findings in a way that is credible and effective.
Signs Your Airbag Deployment Deserves a Closer Look
From your perspective in the driver’s seat, you are not expected to diagnose a manufacturing defect. Still, there are signs that your crash and brain injury may involve an airbag issue worth raising with your lawyer. One red flag is when the severity of the head injury seems out of proportion to the visible vehicle damage. If the front end looks relatively intact, but doctors describe a catastrophic brain injury, that mismatch can be a reason to consider whether the restraint system contributed to the harm.
Unusual airbag behavior is another clue. You or other occupants might recall that the airbags went off in a low speed incident that did not feel like a major crash, or they may have deployed very late in a more serious collision. Sometimes people describe the bag striking them with surprising force, leaving distinct facial or neck injuries, even when the rest of their body seems less affected. In side impacts, a curtain airbag that fails to cover the window or door frame in time can leave occupants with direct head contact despite a visible deployment.
After the crash, physical signs can add to the picture. An airbag that appears underinflated, badly torn in a way inconsistent with its normal seam pattern, or partly wrapped around the steering wheel or pillar may indicate that it did not inflate and vent as intended. Patterns of burns or abrasions on your face, chest, and arms can also offer clues about how the bag unfolded and where your body met it.
When clients come to us at The Law Offices of Jed Silverman, we listen carefully to how they describe the crash and the airbag deployment. Those details, combined with photos and medical records, help us decide whether to push further and involve engineering consultants. You do not need to have all the technical language. What matters is sharing what you experienced and observed, so we can determine whether a deeper look at the airbag system could be a meaningful part of your defense.
Why Technical Investigation Belongs in Your Defense Strategy
All of these pieces, from deployment timing and manufacturing variance to quality control records and injury patterns, point to one larger reality. In a serious Houston criminal case involving a brain injury, the story is rarely as simple as a crash and a single bad decision. Safety systems like airbags play a real role in shaping how much harm actually occurs. When an airbag unit is out of tolerance, it can push the outcome from a survivable collision into a case that triggers the most severe charges and penalties.
Technical investigation is not a magic switch that erases criminal exposure. It is, however, a way to bring the full truth into view, including factors the initial investigation probably ignored. These inquiries take time. Vehicles typically need to be preserved, modules and event data need to be secured, and manufacturers may need to be pressed for records. The sooner a defense team that understands both the science and Texas criminal law is involved, the more options there usually are.
At The Law Offices of Jed Silverman, our focus is on building a tailored defense that fits the facts of your case, including the behavior of your vehicle’s safety systems. If you or a loved one are facing serious charges in Houston after a crash that caused a brain injury, and you have questions about how the airbag deployed, we are available to talk about whether a technical review should be part of your defense plan. A careful look now can make a real difference in how responsibility is viewed later.
Call (713) 597-2221 to speak with our team about your case.