Air bag fatalities are caused by a combination of proximity to deploying air bags and the current designs of those air bags. The one fact that is common to all persons who died is not their height, weight, gender, or age. Instead, it is the fact that they were too close to the air bag when it started to deploy. For some, this occurred because they were initially sitting too close to the air bag. More often, this occurred because they were not restrained by seat belts or child safety seats and were thrown forward during pre-crash braking.
Air bags are designed to save lives and prevent injuries by cushioning occupants as they move forward in a frontal crash. They keep an occupant's head, neck, and chest from hitting the steering wheel or instrument panel. To accomplish this, an air bag must move into place quickly. The force of a deploying air bag is greatest as the air bag begins to inflate. The force decreases as the air bag inflates further.
Occupants who are very close to or in contact with the cover of a stored air bag when the air bag begins to inflate can be hit with enough force to suffer serious injury or death. In general, a driver can avoid this risk by sitting at least 10 inches away from the air bag (measured from the breastbone to the center of the air bag cover) and wearing safety belts. Teenage and adult passengers can avoid this risk by moving their seat back and wearing their safety belts. Children should ride in the rear seat whenever possible.
The confirmed fatalities involving children have a number of fairly consistent characteristics. First, 13 infants were in rear-facing infant seats that were installed in front of a passenger side air bag. Second, the vast majority of the older children were not using any type of restraint.(11) Third, as noted above, the crashes occurred at relatively low speeds. If the passenger air bag had not deployed in those crashes, the children would probably not have been killed or seriously injured. Fourth, the infants and older children were very close to the instrument panel when the air bag deployed. A rear-facing infant seat which is installed in the front seat of a vehicle with a passenger side air bag will always position the infant's head very close to the air bag. For essentially all of the older children, the non-use or improper use of occupant restraints or the failure to use the restraints most appropriate to the child's weight and age, in conjunction with pre-impact braking, resulted in the forward movement of the children prior to the actual crash. As a result, they were very close to the air bag when it deployed. Because of their proximity, the children sustained fatal head or neck injuries from the deploying passenger air bag.
As in the case of the children fatally injured by air bags, the key factor regarding the confirmed adult deaths has been their proximity to the air bag when it deployed. The most common reason for their proximity was failure to use seat belts. Only 11 of the 40 drivers were known to be properly restrained by lap and shoulder belts at the time of the crash. As in the case of children, the deaths of drivers have occurred primarily in low speed crashes.
The other cause of air bag fatalities is the design of current air bags. Air bag fatalities are not a problem inherent in the concept of air bags or in the agency's occupant restraint standard. That standard has always permitted, but not required, vehicle manufacturers to use a variety of design features that would reduce or eliminate the fatalities that have been occurring, e.g., higher deployment thresholds that will prevent deployment in low speed crashes, sensors that adjust the deployment threshold depending on whether the occupant is belted,(12) different folding patterns and aspiration designs, dual stage inflators,(13) new air bag designs like the Autoliv "Gentle Bag" that deploys first radially and then toward the occupant, and advanced air bags that either adjust deployment force or suppress deployment altogether in appropriate circumstances. While some of these features are new or are still under development, others have been around (at least conceptually) for more than a decade. The agency identified a number of these features in conjunction with its 1984 decision concerning automatic occupant protection and noted that vehicle manufacturers could choose among those features to address the problems reported by those manufacturers concerning out-of-position occupants.
Although Standard No. 208 permits vehicle manufacturers to install air bags incorporating those advanced features, very few current air bags do so. Instead, vehicle manufacturers have thus far used designs that inflate with the same force under all circumstances. Although the vehicle manufacturers are now working to incorporate advanced features in their air bags, the introduction of air bags with those features is only just beginning.
Partly in view of the lead time needed to incorporate those advanced features, vehicle manufacturers first took the quicker step of depowering their air bags. Under a recent temporary amendment to Standard No. 208, vehicle manufacturers have expedited their introduction of depowered or otherwise redesigned air bags. While these modified air bags will reduce, but not eliminate, the incidence of air bag-caused deaths, they still deploy with the same force in all crashes, regardless of severity, and regardless of occupant weight or location. Many manufacturers introduced substantial numbers of these less powerful air bags in model year 1998.
