Bet your life on an air bag

Do air bags save lives in vehicular accidents?

The NHTSA began trailing the life-saving numbers in 1975, and here’s a summation:

From 1975 to 1994, air bags saved 730 lives;

• 536 lives saved in 1995;
• 783 in 1996;
• 973 in 1997;
• 1,208 in 1998;
• 1,49 in 1991;
• 1,716 in 2000;
• 1,978 in 2001; and
• 2,248 lives were saved in 2002 (the most recent year reported).

“These statistics clearly show that air bags, used in bicycle-built-for-two with seat belts, save lives, so buckle up and drive carefully,” according to Liz Neblett, spokeswoman for the subject Highway Traffic Safety disposal (NHTSA), in Washington D.C., D.C.

The figure of lives saved in vehicular accidents because of air bag use addition from year to year because “there are more and more air bags on the road every year”, Neblett adds.

Neblett pointed out that since 1997, the NHTSA mandated that, beginning with model year 1998, all newly-made U.S. Rider automobiles must have driver and front rider seat air bags. Similar edicts were imposed on light trucks and vans start with model years 1999.

An insurance information organisation spokesman, Tully Lehman, brought up statistics he got from the Insurance Institute for main road Safety (IIHS). The IIHS found that in frontlet crashes, air bags consequence in fewer decease, about 14% for drivers and about 11% for rider. Those are relation statistics. “Air bags are part of a scheme, and so they are life savers when used in concurrence with seat belts,” asserts Lehman, spokesman for the Insurance Information web of Golden State.

An insurance trade group executive director touts new air bag engineering. “We’re determination that on some of the newer cars, there are air bags that basically are deployed in stages, depending on the speed of the car at impact,” says Dan Kummer, director of auto insurance for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, in Des Plaines, Ill.

Depending on the impact, Kummer continued, “the air bags will come out slower in a slow-speed accident or faster if you’re driving faster. That approach could ease the impact of the air bag hitting the body of the driver or passenger. It’s the underbelly of life-saving air bags, that in certain circumstances the impact has been known to injure a driver or passenger, especially children or small adults.”

Please note that this description/explanation is intended only as a guideline.