The Effect of Airbags on Injuries and Accident Costs

INTRODUCTION The global accident figures in Germany have been steadily declining for years now. This positive trend has been intensified by the extra protective effect afforded by front airbags. This additional protection of front airbags has been proven based on analyses of real accidents. The GDV airbag database has been expanded to 335 airbag cases and currently provides information about accidents involving front and side airbags as well as “problem cases”. Since the number of vehicles already equipped with side airbags is still very small in Germany, there are currently still no universally applicable findings about the behavior of side airbags. Earlier studies carried out by the GDV clearly confirmed the protective action of the front airbag as a restraint system in addition to the three-point seat belt primarily for the driver. The present paper focuses in particular with “airbag problems”, i.e. “injuries caused by the airbag”, “airbag activation while the vehicle is stopped”, ” airbag activation while driving” and “no airbag activation despite high accident severity”. The last problem cases involved traffic fatalities. Moreover, the topic of “airbag and the cost of repair work” will also be discussed. The problem cases that are described in this paper demonstrate that the airbag itself, its components, its activation behavior, its activation threshold and the activation safety must still be optimized. Raising the activation threshold to approx. 25-30 km/h. i.e. coordinating the activation threshold to the belted passengers, would not only reduce the danger of injury caused by the airbag itself, but would also lead to a reduction of the costs for repair work. Even today, expanses amounting to 90 million DM arise in Germany per year due to the premature activation of front airbags. When 50 % of all vehicles are equipped with airbags, this figure will rise to approximately 200 million DM. Since passenger presence detection systems only exist in very few car models, additional expenses of 70 million DM will arise per year, since in approximately 40 % of all cases involving activation of the passenger airbag, the passenger seat is not even occupied. In the past few decades, the accident situation in Germany has been characterized by a steady decline in the number of traffic deaths despite a rise in traffic volume [ 11. Due to improvements in automobile safety and progress in the field of accident medicine and driver education, the number of deaths among car passengers has been declining continually since 1970 (Figure 1). In 1997, there were 8,5 16 fatalities in Germany, two thirds of whom (5,283 persons) were car passengers.