There were no accidents leading up to a failure. the airbag light in my 2008 kia spectra ex suddenly came on. after taking it in to a dealer, i was notified that the entire bottom portion of the seat needed to be replaced. the car could not tell if there was a person in the passenger seat. this deactivated the entire airbag system. several other complaints are here: http://www.arfc.org/complaints/2008/kia/spectra/air_bags/problem.aspx. this does not seem to be an isolated issue, and should be addressed by kia. *tr