Airbags

What's the Purpose?

Air bags are designed for frontal impact crashes, the kind of crashes which account for more than half of all passenger vehicle occupant deaths. Air bags are designed to limit head and chest injuries, but they only supplement safety belts. They do not replace them.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that the combination of an air bag in addition to a lap and shoulder belt reduces the risk of serious head injury by 81 percent, compared to 60 percent reduction for belts alone.
While air bags have a good overall safety record and have saved an estimated 1,263 lives in 1999 alone, they pose several risks for children.

What's the Problem? 

Most new cars have air bags for front-seat passengers. When used with lap/shoulder belts, air bags work very well to protect older children and adults who ride facing the front of the car.

Drivers and passengers who are unrestrained or are wearing only the lap portion of their safety belt can receive serious or even fatal injuries from deploying air bags as they are thrown toward the dashboard area during pre-crash braking.

In a crash, the air bag inflates at 200 mph (1/25 of a second), and with up to 200 pounds of force. It could hit anything close to the dashboard with enough force to cause severe injuries or even death.

Air bags are extremely dangerous for young children and infants who ride in rear-facing child seats. Because the back of a rear-facing child seat sits very close to the dashboard, all of the forces from the air bag are transferred directly to the child’s head, which can cause serious injury or death. Even older children (who have outgrown child seats) are at risk from a deploying air bag, if they are not properly restrained with a lap/shoulder belt.
 
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has identified 101 crashes where the deployment of the passenger air bag resulted in fatal head or neck injuries to a child. In addition, three children have been killed by driver side air bags. Nineteen of these deaths were to infants in rear-facing child safety seats. Most of the other 84 children were determined to be completely unbuckled, "out of position," or wearing only the lap portion of the safety belt (improperly restrained) at the time of the crash.

What Should I Do?

Babies should ride in a rear-facing child safety seat until they are at least one year old and at least 20 pounds. An infant in a rear-facing child seat must ride in the back seat if your vehicle has a passenger side air bag, unless your vehicle has a shut-off switch and the air bag has been turned off.

Children ages 12 and under should always be properly restrained in a child safety seat or safety belt and ride in the back seat. Even if there isn't a passenger air bag in the motor vehicle, the safest place for infants and children is properly secured and buckled up in the back seat.

If it is absolutely necessary to place a forward-facing safety seat in the front of a vehicle with a passenger-side air bag, make sure the child is properly secured in the safety harness and the seat is tightly installed in the vehicle seat. The vehicle seat should be adjusted as far back as possible from the dashboard.

Make sure that everyone in the front seat is properly buckled up and seated as far back from the air bags as reasonably possible. Make sure that all young children are properly secured in a child safety seat and older children by a lap/shoulder belt.

Know how to properly install your child seat in the vehicle. Read both the owner’s manual for the vehicle and the instructions for your child safety seat.

Never allow anyone to sit closely to or ride with their feet on the dashboard area.

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