How Many Airbags Do We Actually Need to Be Safe?

"By 2009 side airbags will be standard equipment."
"The NHTSA is likely to require side airbags that protect passenger's heads and torsos by 2010."

That's sickening. I don't want that crap in my car. Hell, I wish I didn't have the two that are in the car I have. I don't want the extra weight slowing my car down / killing my mpg. I don't want the extra cost when I buy a new car. I certainly don't want the extra bruising / internal injuries caused by getting hit by 6 airbags in a car accident that would have only caused a little whiplash if no airbags had been in the car.

Airbags, stability control, all of that crap provide the moronic masses with the illusion that we can eliminate the main cause of car accidents / deaths from car accidents. What is the number one cause? Driver stupidity. No matter how many "safety" devices you stick in a car, idiots will still drive on the wrong side of the road, take a turn at twice the speed limit in a truck / suv, eat while driving, etc that will cause accidents.

Oh, I'll also bet good money that the companies that make airbags and electronic control systems for cars have paid congress a LOT of money to get this crap made mandatory. That's why if I can swing the money, I'll buy some low production exotic (like a Lotus) that doesn't have to follow the idiotic rules.

I hear you Remy.
Right on the head.

For what Remy concerns, he obviously doesn't need protection because he doesn't have anything that needs protection.

About four months ago I was on the receiving end of a side-impact collision. I was driving a 1990 Camry and the guy who hit me was driving a 2006 Camry. The whole driver's side of my car starting from the front door to the gas cap was smashed in at most about 7 inches. Pretty bad stuff. Anyway, my car drove away from the scene (although badly out of alignment) and I felt shaken from the impact. The guy who hit me had a damaged radiator (so his car no longer ran), several airbags deployed, and he seemed more in shock from the airbag impact than the car impact.

Are automakers substituting stiff metal structuring for crumple zones and airbag protection? Although still running after the accident, my camry was too badly damaged to be worth repairing -- so a friend and I had fun demolition style with it versus a 1987 Saab 900s.
The Saab won.

Four years ago my wife was T-boned on the drivers side at around 50 MPH. Although she was barely moving at the time of the impact, her car was moved 160 feet by it and the side of the vehicle was completely destroyed. At the time she was still driving her 1995 Corolla with only front air bags. The impact completely destroyed the side of the car and my wife was nearly killed. Her pelvis was crushed by side door area. She spent over two months in the hospital and had several major surgeries. Even though we both have good health care plans the accident financially drained us. We've often wondered whether or not side airbags would've have made the difference, professional consensus as that it would have and she has them now. We tried to sue but we live in Florida which is a no fault state and the driver has no assets. Over $200,000 in losses can buy a lot of gas to compensate for the added weight of side airbags. By the way, she was hit by someone driving a small Honda.

I work for the Minnesota Traffic Safety Department and I can tell you right now that *proper* airbag deployment saves lives and is worth every penny. More research and data has been gathered on this topic (in addition to seatbelts) than you'll probably ever want to sift through. Airbags are an incredible addition to occupant protection, but they are not the end-all safety feature. Until we reduce the 45,000 traffic fatalities PER YEAR in this country down to ZERO, we'll never have the perfect system. More improvements are on the way...

for once it isn't totally the marketing department's fault. This is driven by NHTSA and IIHS. Every study I have seen has shown that side impact airbags do make a difference. When they test vehicles with optional side-impact airbags, the model equipped with the bags always performs better. The 2004 Camry improved from 3 to 5 stars in side-impact ratings when test without and with side-impact airbags. When I bought my last car, I made sure that it was equipped with the side airbags. I'm definitely willing to take the marginal impact on mpg for the greatly improved safety. Especially because if you get hit in the side, it is most likely not your fault, and although I think that I am a safe driver, I know there are a lot of crazies out there. Like my grandfather (a former driver's ed instructor) used to always say, "It's the other guy that I worry about."

Hubert,
I doubt a side air bag would have done much in an impact at that speed. Airbags do fine keeping you from banging into the interior, but a 50mph side impact will crush the side of the car toward the passenger compartment. Nothing an air bag can do about that. Only a full racing type roll cage will help in a T-bone crash at those speeds.

+1 Remy. The general public doen not seem to underatand that features like ABS, All Wheel drive and Stability control systems do not make a vehicle crash proof. What it does mean is that the driver is now usually going faster when they do crash. When I was instructing at high speed driving schools, it was a fairly common perception of first time drivers at these events that these systems will prevent them from crashing. Interesting how they were usually the first ones into the sand traps when they lost control of the car.

Technology is not a replacement for driver skill. We would save many more lives by having better drivers. Now, if technology could keep stupid drivers off the road, I'd be all for it....

As for the "air bag race", more air bags will provide better protection in some situations and will certainly be more expensive to repair in all situations. Cars will be totaled out more quickly. Also, airbags don't help in multiple impact crashes or roll over situations. In the end however, any crash you can walk away from is better than one that requires a hospital stay....

Every time some wingnut passes me at 90+mph on our local "autobahn", I honestly believe that we are better off with the extra equipment than without it. You may think you can control what you do behind the wheel but anything can happen out there....weather, objects in the road, the idiot who thinks his S-10 is a NASCAR truck. You just don't know what will happen. And when it does eventually happen...you'll be happy you have that extra stuff.

LA.

Get off the phone, pay ATTENTION to what is going on around you - not just in front of you. AND SLOW DOWN.

I drive a jeep - no doors, windows, extravagances. I ride a motorcycle - even less. (I wear a helmet) I've only been in 2 accidents and I was a passenger both times.

I see people not paying attention to what they are doing, assuming they have it under control, and take for granted how to drive.

Perhaps if we legislate that everyone must live in a bubble to protect them them maybe people will stop dying. Oh wait, life is terminal.

"Until we reduce the 45,000 traffic fatalities PER YEAR in this country down to ZERO, we'll never have the perfect system."

As I said, you'll never eliminate driver stupidity. Now for the numbers - lets round down the population of the country to 300 million (and that's just the LEGAL ones). You're complaining about 45,000 deaths being some huge "death trap" or whatever? It works out to .015% of the population dying per year in car wrecks. Those odds are so small that I wouldn't begin to be afraid of them.

If you're paranoid that you might be one of those .015% of people who get killed in a car wreck each year, then go ahead and spend all sorts of money on airbags to pummel your body from every direction so that you have the illusion of being "safe" from everything (when in fact airbags only really help under specific circumstances, and those are rare). However, no one should be FORCED to pay more for a car and more per year in gas just because some of you are paranoid. It's the same thing with identity theft. Does it happen? Yes, but it's nowhere near as common as the news wants you to believe. The odds of having your identity stolen are rather slim and while you should give it some slight concern, you shouldn't waste money or time trying to prevent it.

If you want something that will truly increase safety when driving, how about actually requiring people to know how to drive in order to get a license? Going around the block without hitting anything and being able to parallel park are NOT the same as being able to drive. That does nothing for how to avoid an obstacle that just pops out (such as a car losing control due to a blown tire) at high speeds; it does nothing to teach people how to recover if they hit ice on the road or spin out of control. The reason why Germany has a significantly lower accident rate is because they require people to go through extensive driving training before they can get their license. They also don't worry about speeding tickets (since not many accidents are caused by speeding) and instead focus on what causes much more accidents on the road - tailgating.

Well you have a limited ability to avoid a side impact accident, it is beyond your control to stop people from running lights :)

The medical cost from ONE is astronomical

I do all kinds of high risk work and fun and i want and am willing to pay TO NOT be a gimp the rest of my life because of a whack in the side

Tommays

As I said Tom, if you're that paranoid, then by all means spend your hard earned money on it. However, those who aren't paranoid shouldn't be forced to suffer as a result.

Oh, it IS in your control though to actually look from side to side before going forward when the light changes to check and see if it looks like some moron is going to run the light.

What's up with the airbags? I've been in 9 car accidents, and none of the airbag actually deployed. The first one was a head-on collision. It was the seat belt in all of those accidents that kept me alive. Those death and health complications, due to accidents and explosion, at a airbag company never show up in the news. Try to querry for GAO reports (it's going to cost you some money), it should all be there in full glory since the 90s. Ferric azide was used in the original airbags. Sodium azide is the active agent in today's airbags.

Here is a few sites containing the toxicity of sodium azide and the environmental hazard of disposing sodium azide:

http://www.airbagonoff.com/Sodium_Azide.htm
http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et0800/et0800s9.html

What would you rather have; less airbags and a death or tons of airbags and have a stupid person walk way alive and learn from their mistakes?

Airbags work if your in the specific range that is intended for it to be effective. but lets say your short and you sit close to the wheel then you'll be saved from the accident but the airbag will cause you more damage cause you're sitting out of the range it was intended for use. so you're screwd if you sit to close to the wheel when it deployed.. I have friend who's saved by her airbag but it screwd her up for the rest of her life with head injury from the airbag. We don't know her life expectancy is now..her parents have to take care of her for the rest of her life now..I never here anything bad on the news about airbags, only the good things..cause they won't let ya know about it.. bad publicity...

I was involved in a car accident a yr ago. Some idiot plowed into my driver's side t-bone style while I was stopped at a stop sign. You think to yourself "how could this have happened"? but the point is, anything can happen.

You can be the most careful driver out there but all it takes is one idiot to change your life forever...or end it, especially if you were hit at a very high rate of speed and I doubt that any safety device can protect you in those cases.

In my case, it was determined that the idiot driver plowed into my car at 50 mph at a 25mph zone. My car was totalled and I suffered severe concussions and side whiplash after my car got spun around. I was wearing my seatbelt and had I not, I probably would've been thrown out of my car and I am lucky to be alive.

We have to fix the very cause of accidents and that is to teach people how to drive properly. We can't continue to treat just the symptoms of it.

I was involved in a car accident a yr ago. Some idiot plowed into my driver's side t-bone style while I was stopped at a stop sign. You think to yourself "how could this have happened"? but the point is, anything can happen.

You can be the most careful driver out there but all it takes is one idiot to change your life forever...or end it, especially if you were hit at a very high rate of speed and I doubt that any safety device can protect you in those cases.

In my case, it was determined that the idiot driver plowed into my car at 50 mph at a 25mph zone. My car was totalled and I suffered severe concussions and side whiplash after my car got spun around. I was wearing my seatbelt and had I not, I probably would've been thrown out of my car and I am lucky to be alive.

We have to fix the very cause of accidents and that is to teach people how to drive properly. We can't continue to treat just the symptoms of it.

I own a honda 2007 honda civic. Recently I was smashed into by a drunk driver in a chevy tahoe who ran through the red light at 50 mph, as reported by a device in his car. The honda civic is a small car, all the side airbags deployed and did their job, i passed out from the shock of the accident, i had some brusing and whip lash. I saw the side of the car and the damage was unbelivable. I talked to the fire fighter after the accident and he told me if my car did not have the side airbags i would of definetley been severley injured or even died.

this is an addition to my recent post. The fire fighter who told me this said the suv hood entered the window of my car and with out the airbag i would of suffered from a skull fracture and no doubtely brain damage.

I agree with some above, they are over the top. It is one thing to have side airbags, but knee airbags? So much expense! Airbags are good, but too much of a good thing can be bad!

I agree with the guy t-boned in the '90 Camry. Car companies are beginning to think airbags make a car indestructable versus a good frame. That's why I'm looking at a '98 Lexus ES 300 as my next car. When cars still had a strong frame, weigh as much as a modern small/medium SUV, and this Lexus still has torso side-airbags. It is a heavy old car that still has 4 airbags (but the side only are for the torso). In the crash test, the dummies received LOWER head injury than a car that was 5 years newer and HAD head airbags! In the test the torso bags forced the dummy's entire body from the door and window, pushing the dummy in the opposite direction of harms way. Car companies need to wake up and realize these lightweight fiberglass materials won't hold up in a severe impact; airbags won't help if the occupant compartment is gone.

I agree with some above, they are over the top. It is one thing to have side airbags, but knee airbags? So much expense! Airbags are good, but too much of a good thing can be bad!

I agree with the guy t-boned in the '90 Camry. Car companies are beginning to think airbags make a car indestructable versus a good frame. That's why I'm looking at a '98 Lexus ES 300 as my next car. When cars still had a strong frame, weigh as much as a modern small/medium SUV, and this Lexus still has torso side-airbags. It is a heavy old car that still has 4 airbags (but the side only are for the torso). In the crash test, the dummies received LOWER head injury than a car that was 5 years newer and HAD head airbags! In the test the torso bags forced the dummy's entire body from the door and window, pushing the dummy in the opposite direction of harms way. Car companies need to wake up and realize these lightweight fiberglass materials won't hold up in a severe impact; airbags won't help if the occupant compartment is gone.

Ok, I'll suppliment. Some car companies are still very good. My dad drives an '08 accord; top safety pic in '08. It has a very sturdy frame. Honda and Toyota have fairly good frames, but I'm saying where compoanies are headed. It won't be long before cars will be made out of fiberglass.

can't you put air bags on the head rest at the backof the seat.