Toyota announced Thursday it is recalling more than 300,000 sport utility vehicles in the United States to fix faulty airbag sensors. The automaker said the sensors - which are designed to detect vehicle roll angle - can malfunction and inadvertently cause the side curtain airbag and seatbelt to be activated. The sensor malfunction does not prevent the airbag from deploying during a collision, Toyota said in a statement.
A Toyota spokesman said the Japanese automaker has received defect-related reports of "minor injuries, including a report of a person's hand being cut by a seatbelt in March." The recall affects 214,000 RAV4 vehicles and 94,000 Highlander and Highlander HV vehicles from the 2007 and 2008 model years.