How a Safety Device Turned into a Killer

The Forgotten History of  Air Bags

Today, we take automobile airbags for granted—unless or until they malfunction. Fortunately for us, many dangers that accompanied these devices, have been fixed. Yet, what happened after airbag implementation has been nearly forgotten.

This is the story of how airbags came to be mandated, and the unintended consequences that followed.

Step 1.  We start with a new and innovative safety device—the airbag—which has the potential to save many thousands of lives. Much work needs be done, from testing to test marketing.

Step 2. Politicians and bureaucrats, not content with the uncertainties of the marketplace, begin to threaten the American automobile industry with a “mandate” for implementation of the airbag.

Step 3. Automobile manufacturers resist this intrusion into the marketplace—but never on moral grounds. They oppose it only for pragmatic considerations, such as the fact that more testing is necessary. They never challenge the underlying premise that government has the right to take such action.

Step 4. Bureaucrats now give the automobile companies a “concession,” putting off the threatened mandate until sometime in the future. They come up with a new mandate—that the car makers install safety belts which automatically wrap around car occupants, and won’t allow the car to start until the automatic belts are snapped into place.

Step 5. Hapless Americans become so exasperated with the new automatic safety belts that they go to backyard mechanics to disengage them.

Step 6. Now that car buyers have an aversion to automatic seat belts, bureaucrats offer automobile manufacturers another “concession”—allowing them to scrap the automatic belts if they phase in airbags.

Step 7. Meanwhile, engineers testing airbags, determine that small children and small adults could be hurt or killed by the devices.

Step 8. Federal regulators dismiss these concerns, ignore the ramifications, and withhold this and other information from the press and the public.

Step 9. The U.S. Supreme Court overrules an attempt by a more market-oriented administration to scrap the airbag requirement.

Step 10. A federal bureaucrat orders the implementation of airbags by a certain date, but makes one “concession” to automakers: only driver’s side airbags will be required for now.

Step 11. A vocal critic of airbags, the CEO of a major automaker, does a 180-degree turn and becomes the first to make airbags standard in all cars manufactured by his company.

Step 12. An advertising campaign is conducted, showing airbags deploying in slow motion—as if they are a marvelous magic pillow that will cradle one’s head in an accident. The violent reality of airbag deployment—hot, dangerous gases whipping the bag out at its true speed of two-hundred miles per hour—is not shown. 

Step 13. Americans are swayed by the magic pillow ads, and begin to demand passenger side airbags to protect their loved ones.

Step 14. Over a period of years, as airbags are phased into new cars, about fifty people—infants, children, and small adults—die from airbags as their necks are broken or from some other horrific deathblow from the airbag, such as decapitation. Most of these incidents occur in low speed accidents where, in most cases, the victims would not have been harmed.

Step 15. In addition, thousands of individuals have their eyes, wrists and arms injured because they weren’t aware that one should hold the steering wheel differently when a federally mandated time bomb is in the steering column. No one had told them. Also, people sustain facial burns and abrasion from deployment.

Step 16. The former federal regulator, who had campaigned for the airbags, now blames the automakers.

Step 17. Federal regulators scurry around for a solution, such as “smart” airbags. They say that they may “allow” mechanics to deactivate the airbag system if a person feels they are at risk. But automakers and mechanics are afraid of the legal consequences of deactivation.

Conclusion: Ironically, airbags are not the culprit. They can and do save lives. They are a viable safety device that should have been offered as an informed option, with the dangers clearly explained. But, when government coercion and force are added to this equation, all bets were off.
The initiation of force by government—in this case, the airbag mandate—prevented reasoned deliberation by automobile manufacturers, engineers, airbag suppliers, car buyers and the public. The thought process was short-circuited and the unintended consequences of the airbag mandate continue to this day.

Fast Forward to 2018 — More information on air bag history and safety:
·        Air Bag Safety
https://www.dmv.org/how-to-guides/air-bag-safety.php

·        Airbag related injuries and deaths:
http://what-when-how.com/forensic-sciences/airbag-related-injuries-and-deaths/

·        Airbag Deployment Can Cause 'Hidden' Cardiac Injuries
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/819375
        
·        Takata Airbag Recall: Everything You Need to Know
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-recalls-defects/takata-airbag-recall-everything-you-need-to-know/     

·        How to protect your dog from airbags and other potential hazards
http://www.dogster.com/lifestyle/5-reasons-your-dog-should-always-be-in-a-safety-harness-or-secured-carrier-in-the-car 

Photo by Samuel Foster on Unsplash