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| Forms/Documents |
Air bag safety: Facts you should know
November 2003
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Air bags are most efficient when passengers, driver and children are buckled. Children under 12 should be properly restrained in the back seat. |
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Sadly enough, many of us during our lifetime will experience a less or more serious car accident. Car accidents are a major cause of mortality and permanent severe disabilities all over the world. |
Sadly enough, many of us during our lifetime will experience a less or more serious car accident. Car accidents are a major cause of mortality and permanent severe disabilities all over the world.
Air bags are saving many thousands of lives every year. In frontal crashes air bags reduce deaths among drivers by 30% and among passengers by 27%.
Air bags add to the protection offered by seat belts. However air bags are not without dangers. It is important to educate people about safe transportation in vehicles with air bags.
| The main source of risk is
proximity. An air bag needs space to inflate. It is recommended that
the distance between the driver or passenger and the air bag should
be at least 10 inches (25 cm).
The driver should move his seat rearward and tilt the seat back. The distance of 10 inches should be between the center of the steering wheel and the cover of the airbag to the breastbone of the driver. Of course this should be done if the driver can keep full control of the vehicle while driving. |
Very few people are unable to have full control of the car and have the security distance of 10 inches from the air bag cover. In this case an on-off switch may be useful.
However the vast majority of people who currently sit less than 10 inches from the steering wheel can achieve that distance by moving their seat to the rear as far as possible (while still being able to comfortably drive the vehicle) and/or tilting the seat back slightly.
| It is important that the driver and passengers wear their seat belt independently of the availability in the car of air bags. |
Children of 12 years old and younger should seat in the back seats. A rear-facing child restraint should never be put in front of an air bag.
Drivers with medical conditions should turn off their air bag only if they have been advised to do so because the air bag poses a risk to them. This risk should be greater than the risks for the head, neck and chest of the patient when hitting the steering wheel or dashboard in case of a frontal crash and the air bag being switched off. It is important to know that hitting the steering wheel or dashboard can happen even if the driver wears his seat belt.
People who switch off their air bags increase significantly their risk of death or serious injury in moderate or high speed crashes.
| Pregnant women should follow the same advice as other adults unless they are member of a risk group. They should buckle up and stay back from the air bag. |
In pregnant women, the lap belt should be positioned low on the abdomen, below the fetus, with the shoulder belt worn normally. Any slack should be pulled out of the belt. Just as for everyone else, the greatest danger to a pregnant woman comes from slamming her head, neck or chest on the steering wheel in a crash.
When crashes occur, the fetus can be injured by striking the lower rim of the steering wheel or from crash forces concentrated in the area where a seat belt crosses the mother's abdomen. By helping to restrain the upper chest, the seat belt will keep a pregnant woman as far as possible from the steering wheel. The air bag will spread out the crash forces that would otherwise be concentrated by the seat belt.
Owners should never attempt to disable the air bag themselves. An air bag system is highly sophisticated and the air bag deploys with great force. Tampering with an air bag system could put the owner at risk of physical harm due to an inadvertent deployment.
Spontaneous inadvertent deployment can be a source of accident and injury. However manufacturers are improving air bags minimizing the risk of such an undesirable event.
Lower powered air bags are depowered by 20 to 35 percent. Depowered air bags will reduce the risk of injury caused by air bags. On the driver side, depowered air bags are expected to substantially reduce any air-bag-related risks for short drivers.
On the passenger side depowered air bags, the chances of fatality to a properly-belted child sitting back from the air bag, are significantly decreased. There still would be a substantial risk for an infant in a rear-facing child restraint and for unrestrained or out-of-position children ages 12-and-under.
| All children are safest in the rear of a vehicle, regardless of their age or size. It is recommended that children 12 and under should never sit in the front seat of a vehicle which is equipped with a passenger air bag. |
If no option exists other than seating them in the front seat, several steps need to be taken. First, the child needs to be properly restrained. This means, depending on the size of the child, using a booster seat plus a lap/shoulder belt, or a lap/shoulder belt alone (for larger children). Second, the vehicle seat needs to be pushed all the way back, to maximize the distance between the child and the air bag. Third, the child needs to be sitting with his/her back against the seat back, not wiggling around or leaning forward, with as little slack as possible in the belt in order to minimize forward movement in a crash.
| Side impact air bags can provide significant supplemental safety benefits to adults in side impact crashes. |
However, children who are seated in close proximity to a side air bag may be at risk of serious or fatal injury, especially if the child's head, neck, or chest is in close proximity to the air bag at the time of deployment.
Because there are variations in the design and performance of side air bags, manufacturers should notify consumers regarding whether it is safe for children to sit next to the side air bags. Children 12 and under should always travel in the rear seat and use an age appropriate restraint.
Bibliography:
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
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