subject: The Effect Of Airbags On Vehicle Safety [print this page] It really is pretty much impossible to put an exact figure on the number of lives that airbags have saved since they began being installed in vehicles, but it is safe to surmise that the number extends well into the thousands. Still yet another figure that's all too often passed over is the number of drivers and passengers who have been protected from being maimed in collisions.
So yes, airbags have had a huge positive influence on vehicle safety but it took years to develop a complete understanding of the dynamics that goes into their deployment, and even more years to harness it correctly. You see, airbags have been around since the early 1970 end even then concepts of some type of safety airbagwas being tossed around for some years prior to that.
The biggest problem that stood between taking automobile safety airbags from the concept phase to actual implementation in cars, and trucks revolved around the actual safety of the airbags themselves back in these early years development. You see, they are in fact powered by a rather powerful explosive charge.
A charge that in an uncontrolled setting is powerful enough to maim and even kill, so it was no small issue that had to be resolved. Now bear in mind that it is a chemical explosion that's powered by an abrupt chemical reaction that involves no flame, as you might picture in a more standard explosive reaction.
So the trick all long has been to harness and control the energy that's released upon impact in an airbag completely. Also it all has to be done in a fraction of a second and in more precise terms, the time that it would take for a driver, or a passenger to impact a dashboard in the event of a collision.
The engineering that has evolved to make safety airbags a reality is nothing short of amazing particularly when you take into consideration that this highly advanced engineering is allowed a 0.00 failure rate. Now a 0.00 failure rate means that of all the millions of safety airbags that have been made, and installed, not one can be defective.
In the end though, in truth safety airbags on their own simply aren't safe enough, so they must be used in conjunction with a seat belt and shoulder strap. Also for children and some smaller adults there remains some safety concerns that has warranted the addition of an on or off switch option for riders in the passenger side of vehicles equipped with safety airbags.
In short, an on-off safety switch allows the driver the option of temporarily disabling the airbag on the front passenger side of the vehicle if he or she feels that the person riding there fails to comply to the industry mandated criteria. That is either they are too small, or too young, or perhaps even have a mitigating medical condition that renders a rider vulnerable to injury from impacting an activated safety airbag.
