Airbag - A luxury or safety feature?

@Binoy, I appreciate your professional advice on how to transport children. But remember, I am working in IBM Pune and my son studies in Sion, Mumbai, where my wife and in-laws are resident. My wife works in SBI Mumbai. So you can appreciate that I am not around always to see that my son properly belts himself, etc. When I am driving him in my Santro, I force him to belt up when he sits in the front seat. In India you cannot expect people to have the discipline that is required when they are transporting children in a airbag-equipped car. So in my view, the airbags pose a greater danger to the children than an accident.

 

You misunderstood the speed factor. The airbags deploy at a speed of 320 kmph, it is not the car's speed I am talkiing about!  Remember, the airbags deploy at *explosive* speeds, so that they can protect passengers in case of a serious accident. However, the same explosive nature of airbags can also kill and maim. Please carefully go through the links I had posted. I did not talk about old women; I said that airbags pose a greater danger for women in general because they are smaller than men and weaker (and so are more likely to get injured from the impact with a deploying airbag).

 

As for evidence, there are umpteen websites that you can google. E.g. here are some testimonials from actual airbag victims:

 

http://www.airbagonoff.com/testamonials.htm

 

In fact the main website of the above link has some very good info:

 

http://www.airbagonoff.com/

 

As for improved design of airbags, one of the links I had posted in my previous post says that the design will become much safer only by 2012. Till then, the airbags are not as safe as they are made out to be, probably due to heavy propaganda and lobbying by the various parties with vested financial interests.

http://in.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=sradhakr1&p=r

1)how can that be an explanation for airbags being unsafe?

2)dual stage airbags are mandatory by NHTSA from 2005 and are in use from then-are there any statistics for women more vulnerable or being more 'weaker'?

3)'umpteen' websites are not what is needed-official ones are-like the American Academy site and this the foremost government site in transportation safety-have a look.

264 people have died from airbag related injuries and the over 20,000 lives have been saved due to airbags.

4) 2012-there might be a cocoon airbag!-all the rest-dual stage and differential triggers are present in today's cars!

Could you name the 'vested party/parties' lobbying for the airbag?

As for the personal situation, in my previous post i mentioned 'parent' and did not single out any 'one' among them. The responsibility of providing safety to the child rest with both the parents and excuses for anything otherwise would be setting the wrong example for our 'future'.

All this 'worry' about airbag killing people is related to the frontal airbag.

Airbags include- side-knee-curtain-rear and roof-none of these are associated with any 'killing and maim ' episodes!





FIRST NATIONAL CarWale MEET: December 19th,20th. Come,Attend,Get(Turbo)Charged !!

 

All said & done, that's the bottomline - Airbags may have killed a few but have saved many lives. 

 

There's nothing to be apprehensive about getting killed or injured due to Airbags - if one can afford the feature, one should definitely go for the safety.

1st National Meet (CW Forums) at Mumbai on 19-20th Dec.'09. Check invitation & details at http://www.carwale.com/forums/viewthread-10791.html, and confirm your participation by 15/11/'09.

these deaths have occurred due to non compliance to established guidelines-like letting children to occupy front seats and not using an appropriate child seat.

Since 2004 these norms are enforced everywhere and the NHTSA reports no deaths due to airbags since then.



FIRST NATIONAL CarWale MEET: December 19th,20th. Come,Attend,Get(Turbo)Charged !!

By the way, my children are quite grown-up but are not allowed alongside me; they invariably take the rear seat.

 

Incidentally, in the initial stage, my son once insisted to take the font seat & commented that he would otherwise not come along.  Though I knew that he really didn't mean it - he was left behind (at home).

 

I mean to say... we have to be particular about a few things without compromising.

1st National Meet (CW Forums) at Mumbai on 19-20th Dec.'09. Check invitation & details at http://www.carwale.com/forums/viewthread-10791.html, and confirm your participation by 15/11/'09.

there has been some proactive steps from the Indian government also-child seats may well be made mandatory by 2010-reference this article in express



FIRST NATIONAL CarWale MEET: December 19th,20th. Come,Attend,Get(Turbo)Charged !!

"It is learnt that automobile manufacturers have agreed on the need for CRS in passenger cars. There is, however, some debate over who should bear the cost — the automaker or the buyer".

 

Well, a little off-track, but I find this funny (above quote therefrom)  - isn't the cost always borne by us, the buyers?

 

Anyway, that news on CRS is good. Thanks for the link.

1st National Meet (CW Forums) at Mumbai on 19-20th Dec.'09. Check invitation & details at http://www.carwale.com/forums/viewthread-10791.html, and confirm your participation by 15/11/'09.

@Binoy, here is a very brief reply to your points.

 

1. Our people *will not* have the discipline needed for airbag-equipped cars. That makes airbags potential killers in our environment unless the prerequisite safety requirements are drummed into the heads of our drivers (e.g. it could be made part of a driving test). Secondly the restraint systems should also be made mandatory. Since these systems are removable, most likely our people will operate by removing them and then bribing cops, etc. When even our roads do not meet minimum safety standards, it is ridiculous to thrust airbags upon our people. We can prevent thousands and thousands of fatalities by just improving our highways, why not do that first?

 

2. Women are of shorter stature, forcing them to sit closer to the steering wheel while driving. This, apart from their phsically weak stature, makes them vulnerable to airbag injuries. Here is a link to a case when a woman (sitting in the front seat, not sure if driving) was blinded by airbags:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-394244/Woman-car-crash-blinded-airbag.html

 

The article is dated July 2006 and questions safety of airbags.

 

3. NHTSA only talks about airbag-related deaths. What about the serious injuries caused by them? Why no statistics on these? Here is a link to a research article by a medical doctor on these injuries. The introduction says the same thing about NHTSA data:

http://www.airbagonoff.com/dr_smock's_research.htm#airbag%20force

 

4. The promised safe airbags by 2012 are not there yet. Here is a recent website that says so:

 

http://www.anapolschwartz.com/practices/air-bag-failure/

 

 

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air bags have been the cause of injuries and deaths. air bag systems were developed for the 5 ft 8 inch, 180 pound male and have only been tested to meet their needs. No consideration has been given to people who have to sit closer to the steering wheel. Nor did the requirements consider children, or people who have medical reasons (such as heart conditions or osteoporosis) of why an exploding air bag could be fatal.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has given automobile manufacturers until 2012 to provide advanced air bags, but so far no companies have yet developed an air bag system that meets the new criteria.

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As for the "safety lobby", it exists. See the flollowing link, for example:

 

http://www.autotrader.com/research/article/26111/airbags---a-mixed-blessing.jsp

 

I personally am very clear in my mind that my 11-year old son is better off in a car without airbags until he is at least 18. While I concede most arguments to my wife, in the interests of peace at home,  I was adamant on this issue and managed to convince her (no mean task, I assure you!).

 

However, the views I have expressed are my own. As noted by Pankaj, it may make sense for others to go for an airbag-equipped car when they can afford one.

http://in.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=sradhakr1&p=r

@Srinivasan, we (3) have been disagreeing but the advantage is that it has led to very meaningful discussions (other threads included).

 

If I were to sum-up…

 

It appears that you aren’t against the Airbag feature/safety but somehow are apprehensive about its cons (ignoring pros). 

 

Even if the total no. of injuries (not reported) due to Airbags is much higher (say 5K) than the death figures (264), it’s definitely much lower vis-à-vis figures of lives saved (20K).  It is very obvious that in absence of Airbags various cases from those 5K injuries would turned into death cases.

 

What I mean to emphasis here is that it’s better to have more injury cases than death cases.  The injury cases will gradually reduce as the Airbag technology evolves further.

 

Regarding children, I strongly believe that they should be made to sit in the rear seat – with or without ABS – and irrespective of their age.

1st National Meet (CW Forums) at Mumbai on 19-20th Dec.'09. Check invitation & details at http://www.carwale.com/forums/viewthread-10791.html, and confirm your participation by 15/11/'09.

Just to add to discussion about the safety of airbags - the standards in the US and Europe are different. The US airbags are bigger - they are meant to save lives assuming the driver and passenger are NOT wearing seatbelts, while the European standards specify smaller airbags - they are meant to deploy assuming you ARE wearing the seatbelts. I am unsure what the standard is in India - could be a hybrid.

A child under 10 should not be seated in the front. The worst of course is a toddler being seated on a lap - the chances of survival in a front collision are almost 0.

As far as airbags killing people is concerned - two instances come to mind. Nissan had a case of cars - 91 model  - which injured a lot of passengers - and instead of recalling their cars - they had a lot of out-of-court settlements fearing a class action suit.

Mazda was transporting cars in a ship which - well nearly overturned so the brand new cars were in an awkward position for a month. Mazda did not know how the airbags would react to this and hence decided not to sell any of them.