Investigation Reveals Airbags Often Fail
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This investigation by the Kansas City Star reveals that more often than should happen, front airbags do not inflate in head-on crashes. Unfortunately you do not know until you need them.
The newspaper looked into the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) database and found that at least 1,400 motorists died from 2001 through 2006 in collisions where the airbags did not deploy. 1,900 were killed if you add side and rear impact crashes.
Why didn't the airbag deploy? The short answer is nobody really knows. And there is no serious investigation by NHTSA to find out.
Drivers killed include:
* Brook Katz, 27, wife, mother and three months pregnant. A hit-and-run driver ran into the front of her 2005 Dodge Caravan. It spun around 180 degrees and it took the Jaws of Life to get her out. Katz had her seatbelt on but the airbag did not deploy.
* Lloyd Holland, 63, from Ohio driving a 2004 Ford F-150 pickup truck. He was wearing a seat belt when the truck sheared off a pole, hit a culvert and smashed into two trees at about 60mph. His airbag did not deploy.
* Phillip A. Howell, 40, from Syracuse, N.Y. was hit in his 2000 Chevrolet Silverado head-on from a teenage driver who lost control of her vehicle. He was wearing a seat belt. His airbag didn't deploy. The teenager lived, Howell died. The circumstance of the airbags failure to deploy remains unknown, says the police report.
GM suspected as early as October 1999 that something was wrong with the front airbags of many of its 2000 model pickups, the newspaper found. After paying $500,000 to an injured passenger, in June 2002 GM ordered a safety recall. A recalibration of the airbag sensors takes 15 minutes at the auto dealership.
Years ago, airbags were criticized for opening too aggressively at 200 mph and often injuring passengers or drivers. That's when "smart airbags" were developed. Sensors in the front of the vehicle are suppose to determine the weight of the person involved in a collision and adjust accordingly.
Analyzing a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration database of all traffic fatalities over a six-year period, the newspaper discovered that far more people had died from wrecks where airbags didn't deploy than all of those who died from injuries caused by airbags that fired too easily or too forcefully
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Still front end collisions killed about 14,000 drivers and front-seat passengers during that time period. No one knows how many lives could have been saved if the airbags had properly deployed. During that same time period, airbags saved about 15,000 lives.
Bottomline- until the feds and manufacturers take this seriously remember airbags are not foolproof. Wear your seatbelt!