Airbag Related Injuries

When used in conjunction with properly fastened safety belts, airbags are meant to help keep the people inside a vehicle from being seriously injured or killed during a serious accident. In 1989, the US government started requiring that all vehicles produced have airbags installed. It's hard to argue with this standard, as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration concluded that front airbags alone saved 12,000 lives from 1960 to 2002.

When a car is involved in a wreck, there is a chance that the collision will trigger one of the airbag system sensors that are placed at various points around the vehicle. The sensor will then send data to the car's onboard computer, which calculates the severity and speed of the impact. If the accident is serious enough, the computer will then send a signal to the airbag and tell begin the inflation process.

Ideally, the bag will reach full inflation right before the person's body comes into contact with it, and then immediately begin to deflate, decelerating the individuals forward movement gradually. Unfortunately, the timing does not always work out so perfectly, which can have some serious consequences. If the deployment is a little late, the person can hit the airbag while it is still inflating. As the inflation can take place at upwards of 200 miles per hour, this can do serious damage, particularly to the head and neck. If the airbag deploys late, it will have already started to deflate when the person comes into contact with it. In this case, the driver's momentum may not be adequately absorbed, and they may hit the steering wheel or dashboard with a great amount of force. There is also a very real risk posed by airbags inflating in low-severity wrecks. Such situations caused over 200 deaths between 1990 and 2001.

The greatest risk for injuries comes from situations where the airbags fail to deploy at all, despite the wreck being severe enough to warrant their utilization. In fact, failure to deploy causes four times as many airbag-related injuries as do faulty deployments. These injuries range from facial injuries (burns, broken bones, and even blindness), to whiplash and even death. Though they account for a fairly small percentage of airbag injuries, manufacturing defects can and do lead to a number of serious injuries every year.

For more information about automotive defects, visit the website of Stevens Point car accident attorneys Habush Habush & Rottier, S.C.

AIRBAG INJURIES