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Fatalities in Air Bag-Equipped Cars: A Review of 1989-93 NASS Cases
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Abstract
A review of 39 driver fatalities in 1990-93 cars with air bags from the National Accident Sampling System indicated most of these fatalities were due to causes unrelated to frontal air bag performance. Two-thirds occurred in side-impact or rollover crashes, in which air bag effectiveness is limited; of 15 frontal crash fatalities, 6 died of causes unrelated to the frontal impact and 5 in cars with severe intrusion. The remaining four fatalities, three of whom were unbelted, were in moderate to high severity crashes which could have been survivable; however the deploying air bags, instead of protecting, probably contributed to the fatal injuries. A similar review of 12 fatalities of unbelted drivers in cars without air bags revealed 3 could have been prevented by air bags, but 4 were in crashes that could have put them in position to be injured by the air bag. These results suggest that reducing deployment energy would improve air bag effectiveness in relatively severe crashes as well as low severity crashes, even for unbelted drivers. No examples of fatal driver injuries from air bags in low severity crashes were found.
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Lund, A., Ferguson, S., and Powell, M., "Fatalities in Air Bag-Equipped Cars: A Review of 1989-93 NASS Cases," SAE Technical Paper 960661, 1996, https://doi.org/10.4271/960661.Also In
References
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 1995 Federal Register 60 217 56554 Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Occupant Crash Protection Washington, DC
- Ferguson, S.A. Lund, A.K. Greene, M.A. 1995 Driver fatalities in 1985-94 air bag cars Arlington, VA Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
- Kahane, C.J. 1994 Fatality reduction by automatic occupant protection in the United States Paper 94-SS-0-08 14th International Technical Conference on Enhanced Safety of Vehicles Munich, Germany
- Lund, A.K. Ferguson, S.A. 1994 Driver fatalities in 1985-93 cars with air bags The Journal of Trauma Injury, Infection, and Critical Care 38 4
- Insurance Institute for Highway Safety 1995 Special issue: Air Bag Effectiveness Status Report 38
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 1996 Air bag case investigations Office of Research and Development Accident Investigation Division Washington, DC
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 1994 National Accident Sampling System Washington, DC U.S. Department of Transportation
- Highway Loss Data Institute 1991 Driver Injury Experience in 1990 Models Equipped with Air Bags or Automatic Belts Arlington, VA