Airbags

Airbags

Members of our firm have worked on many assignments involving airbags, including both plaintiff and defense cases. Our efforts have covered the following consequences:

"I sure feel safe with this airbag in the steering wheel,"
says Anne Hickerson,

AKA Annie,
demonstrating one

possible difficulty
for a pipe smoker in an
airbag-equipped vehicle.

(No Annie really

doesn't smoke a pipe!)

Killed by airbag explosion;
Temporarily blinded by airbag abrasion & eye impact;
Hand melted by contact with hot airbag canister after deployment;
Hand and fingers severed by airbag covering;
Injuries from airbags that deployed in impacts well below the threshold for deployment;
Facial bones fractured by exploding airbag;
Injuries from items thrown by airbag;
Airbags that should have been deployed, but did not;
Body parts burned by hot gas vented from deployed airbag;
Injuries suffered by airbags that did not deploy fully (a “short” round);
Sensors that malfunctioned;
Wiring not connected properly, i.e. one airbag did not deploy when all others did;
Occupant speared in chest by airbag that did not unfold properly at deployment;
Dealers who sold “airbag” vehicles that, in fact, were not equipped with airbags at all;
Airbags that deployed after occupant was projected into the static airbag;

All but one of our airbag cases have been settled prior to trial.

Warnings are improving but far too slowly. Manufacturers seem to be more interested in sales promotion than customer safety. Early airbag vehicles from 1977 to 1985 had no occupant safety warnings. The danger of rear-facing infant seats behind airbags is only now the subject of warnings and public service announcements.

Airbags deploy in about 30 milliseconds (one third the blink of an eye) with speeds from 140-200 mph. Short, elderly or small occupants seated closer that ten inches from the airbag are subject to death or serious injury! Some airbags deploy late in certain crashes, when the occupant is in direct proximity to the undeployed airbag. Under these circumstances, injury or death is a high probability.

Seat belts must always be worn, even in an airbag-equipped vehicle. Airbags currently deploy when the vehicle suffers a change in speed (ΔV) of 7-14 mph. Our research and accident reconstruction suggests that this threshold should be raised to 15-20 mph, as seat belts do quite well at lower speeds where airbags may do more harm than good.

Reprinted from The Reconstructor, Newsletter of Boster, Kobayashi & Associates.
Volume 1, Issue 3, Fall 1999.

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