Did you know that on our roads at every moment there are many vehicles that have been cut apart and put back together without any blueprints, testing, or safety analysis? We don't know when one of these is approaching us on the highway, because they have been beaten to fit and painted to match. In other words, they look just fine. Even the owners of these cars, trucks, and recreational vehicles don't know how their vehicles were created.
Most vehicles on the roads are OEM, original equipment manufacturer, that is, made by recognized, quality manufacturers like Ford, General Motors, and Toyota. But the ones I'm talking about have been modified from their original status. They are stripped down, cut apart and reassembled as something else like handicapped accessible vehicles, RV's, limousines, off-road vehicles, and conversion vans.
Usually, they aren't required to comply with federal motor vehicle safety standards. In many cases, the companies that create these vehicles fail to observe basic safety standards. For example, they may not have an engineer on staff; no engineer was consulted in the design; no testing was performed, and there were no quality controls.
Who pays the price for this shoddy work? Maybe the owner who is injured in a crash, because the vehicle was not structurally sound. I have seen a number of cases like this where the people in modified vehicles were horribly injured in wrecks that people in similar, unmodified vehicles would have easily survived without serious injury or death. Sometimes, though, it's the innocent people in the oncoming vehicles who are the victims. Maybe a steering problem or a suspension problem in the modified vehicle caused the problem. Those are the common culprits.
If you or someone you know has been involved in a mishap with a modified vehicle, you should investigate whether the modification contributed to the injury. Call my office for a free copy of my DVD that will answer frequently asked questions about personal injuries.