About 12 million vehicles were recalled from 2015-24 for safety defects that could result in air bags not deploying.

The recalls were well-publicized. In fact, many vehicle owners, upon learning about a recall, were unhappy about the fact that a trip to the service department outside of routine maintenance would be necessary.

Still, most owners were satisfied that service department visit could someday prevent a catastrophic situation for them and also for passengers, if their vehicles were involved in a crash. It made sense to schedule the service as soon as possible.

But now it has been made known by the Wall Street Journal how many vehicle owners did not have the repairs completed, as well as the tragic consequences from some of the lapses in good, responsible judgment.

So, four questions that need to be posed to drivers of this region:

— Do you own or lease a vehicle?

— Have you ever received a recall notice from your vehicle’s manufacturer?

— If so, have you responded to the notice, making the vehicle available for all of the repairs identified as necessary?

— If not, why not?

Don’t end up like Brayan Garcia, a driver about whom the Journal began a report in its Dec. 9 edition. Garcia failed to respond to recall notices and died at the scene when his car slammed into the back of a pickup truck that was stopping at an intersection in West Texas.

Despite hitting the truck directly, his car’s air bags never went off.

The subsequent investigation revealed that his car had a dangerous defect that could stop its air bags from deploying, and that’s exactly what happened on the tragic day in question.

Garcia had ignored a recall notice, but so have millions of other vehicle owners, the Journal learned, during its investigation regarding recall compliance.

Here’s are two paragraphs from the Journal’s Dec. 9 report:

“From 2015 to 2024, about 12 million vehicles were recalled for safety defects that could result in air bags not deploying. These recalls ­– 37 in total — included models made by

General Motors and Ford as well as luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz and Audi.

“About 2.6 million, or around 22 percent, of affected vehicles remain unfixed, according to an analysis of the latest National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data by the Wall Street Journal.”

The Journal found 12 people, including Garcia, who died after crashes involving vehicles where the air bag was under recall, had not been repaired and did not deploy.

Meanwhile, according to the Journal, the NHTSA data have revealed a broader problem ­– that roughly one in three cars recalled for all reasons goes unfixed.

How many of the vehicles in question are owned by people of this region? Will any of the owners in question die eventually because of their failure to respond to a recall?

Federal regulators have the authority to force companies to issue recalls. However, they say they cannot force vehicle owners to follow up on recall notices and, dangerously, many do not.

The Journal said “safety experts agree air bags are a crucial feature that have saved tens of thousands of lives since they became standard equipment in new vehicles around four decades ago. Yet, they have been a problem for federal regulators for years.”

It’s right to ponder how much the six-county Southern Alleghenies region is part of the problem.