air-bags

is recalling 304,000 vehicles globally for air-bags that may inflate with too much pressure in a crash, send metal and plastic pieces flying and cause injuries or deaths.

Also included in the latest recall are 912 air-bag service parts sold for installation in vehicles for collision repair and other reasons, Honda said.

But insurance firms are threatening to revoke the policy of drivers who turn off their air-bags.

Some air-bags include switches so they can be de-activated easily.

Marjorie Hooper, chairman of pressure group Tinnitus Action, said: "Tinnitus sufferers can be desperate enough to turn the air-bags off.

But Malcolm Tarling, of the Association of British Insurers, said: "Air-bags are safety devices and removing it means tampering with the vehicle."

And any ear-piercing sound such as an air-bag inflating can make the problem permanently worse.

Presently, Morton sells air-bags to GM, Chrysler, Ford, and to automakers in Japan and Europe.

The projections that Morton International will soon expand its Utah air-bag manufacturing operations from 1,700 employees to more than 4,500 are not inflated.

In Utah, the company has plants in Ogden, Brigham City, and Promontory, where engineers and assemblers manufacture one of the world's most popular products with long-term growth potential to be invented since the auto itself: the automotive lifesaving device known as the air-bag.

The air-bag division of Morton has a long history with Utah-based Thiokol, the company that began working on the product in 1968.

Though it currently has a strong position in the expanding air-bag market.

Manufactured in a highly automated process, the air-bag is a complex and sophisticated device that must activate in milliseconds.

A technique called Real Time Radiography takes instant X-ray of each completed air-bag assembly.

Denver-based OEA makes sophisticated pyrotechnic components for Morton's air-bag inflators.