Brandishing a picture of an exploded airbag, Sen. Richard Blumenthal repeated his demand for a nationwide recall of potentially defective airbags made by Takata.
"These exploding airbags are killers," Blumenthal said.
Blumenthal said the limited recall is "absurd and irresponsible," and insisted that carmakers provide loaners or rental cars to owners of cars taken in for replacement of airbags.
"Replacement parts should be provided as quickly as possible," he said.
The defective Takata airbags are installed in nearly eight million cars sold in the United States between 15 and 7 years ago, most of them Honda and Acura, among several other makes.
"Toyota's telling everybody not to carry passengers in a passenger car, and I think that's ironic and a little ridiculous," said Don Goldstein, the owner of a 2003 Toyota Corolla with Takata airbags.
His dealer told him no replacement parts were available.
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Goldstein moved to Hartford from Tennessee and said he drove often in Florida, where high humidity supposedly makes the airbags particularly dangerous.
