The contact owned a 2008 Ford Escape hybrid. While driving approximately 50 mph, an oncoming vehicle crashed head on into the contact's vehicle. The side air bags in the contact's vehicle deployed, but the frontal air bags, including the driver's side air bags, did not deploy. There was no warning indicator illuminated. A police report was filed. The contact sustained injuries that later required medical attention. The contact's vehicle was totaled and towed to a tow yard. The dealer and manufacturer were not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was 199,820.

- Hampshire, IL, USA

Since the first time I experienced a braking failure incident I have done a lot of research&visits to mechanics to retrieve codes thrown from the car off diagnostic machines. Replacing the hcu carries a premium price tag of $5K-7K. Prior to the first accident, there is no obvious way that I could have damaged the hcu with my very normal driving habits (I.e.no history of towing, no long downhill braking)&the hcu is not a component susceptible to wear to the point of early failure. I believe that the Escape hybrids braking system is defective by design (hence the tsb)&fault lies with Ford.I consider this brake failure very serious&a problem that Ford had never bothered to notify me about or recall.my attempts to get Ford's attention on this matter have been fruitless.to summarize NHTSA is not concerned B/C nobody has gotten killed by these defective brakes. Ford claims no responsibility for this very serious&significantly dangerous design flaw.after several episodes of brake failure I found tsb 05-8-5 (8/5/05 NHTSA id#10017553:escapehybridvehicles exhibit the yellow ABS&red E- brake warning lamps illuminating after the engine is started, &an increase inbrake pedaleffort)Ford claims no responsibility to deal w/the problem.its not safe to drive w/O the repair, it had no value being broken, &I did not have the conscience to sell the vehicle w/a dangerous problem.Ford failure to proactively address this safety issue is rather appalling.Ford abandoned me w/a$7,000 bill to repair a problem that is solely related to their poor design.first accident description:ABS warning light&service engine light illuminated on cluster."service brake system"&"regenerative braking disabled" illuminated on message board. On the highway in rush hour traffic, upon extreme braking, brakes failed to stop the vehicle in time to avoid a rear-end collision with the vehicle stopped in front of me.

- Pacific, MO, USA

Vehicle would show a warning message at highway speeds stop safely now and the first time it had done this was approx 1 yr from the date of me buying the vehicle. On the morning of April 21, 2013 the situation occurred only that this time I had a vehicle directly behind me and another in the line to my right. My only option on a 2 lane highway was to swerve to my left to avoid any other vehicles being involved. With no control over brakes or acceleration I hit the metal center divider air bags all deployed except for my drivers steering wheel. With this my car was declared totaled but I have incurred many additional costs due to this vehicle failure. Looking at the website 100+ complaints and only 1 investigation. Something needs to be done.

- Los Angeles, CA, USA