Airbags and Seat belts – The safest combination.
Since July 11, 1984, driver-side airbags have been required by the US government to be built into any new automobile on the road. In 1998, it was mandated that all new vehicles also include an airbag for the front passenger too. Since then, many insurance companies have done research that illustrates a great benefit to the inclusion of side airbags as well. (The latest such study was released on April 15, 2006.)
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) concurred with previously-documented results after looking into the matter as well. In fact, several of the IIHS’ tests concluded that most vehicles on the road that don’t already have side airbags often faced seats that were dislodged or even separated entirely from the floor of the automobile after a crash.
This isn’t to say that airbags are the be-all and end-all of road safety. While airbags can save lives, seatbelts are the truly irreplaceable difference makers in terms of road safety. Seatbelts and airbags each serve a unique purpose as part of a larger system, and without seatbelts airbags can in fact cause more harm than good.
Nonetheless, when properly buckled, an individual can substantially reduce the risk of serious injury when an airbag deploys during a collision. Airbags absorb the force of a crash and redistribute that energy evenly across the body of a passenger. Recent research has actually illustrated that over six thousand lives have been saved already because of the proper use of airbags during an accident.
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