10.10 Airbags

Air bags, combined with lap and shoulder safety belts, offer the most effective safety protection available for passenger vehicles. Air bags are designed to provide protection over and above what the seat belt provides. They are gas-inflated cushions built into the steering wheel, dashboard, door, roof, or seat of your car that use a crash sensor to trigger inflation to protect you from the impact of a collision.

Adult Air Bag Safety

You should always wear your seat belt, even if your car is installed with air bags. Air bags are a supplemental safety device, but seat belts provide all the protection a person needs on their own in a low-impact crash. Air bags are especially effective in preventing serious injury in high-speed crashes. Air bags will not be effective, however, if you are not wearing your seat belt. The seat belt will ensure that you remain in the seated position necessary for the air bags to be effective.

To ensure that your seat belt is worn properly for airbag safety, the lap belt should be worn under the abdomen and low across the hips. The shoulder strap should come over the collarbone away from the neck, and cross over the breastbone. Seat belts in newer cars can almost always be adjusted to fit properly.

Both the driver and passenger seats should be moved back as far back as is feasible. This is especially true for shorter individuals. The closer you are sitting to the air bags, the harder the impact will be when they inflate, which could cause injury to the passengers.

 

Child Air Bag Safety

Avoid putting children in the front seat of a car equipped with airbags. Children sitting in the front seat with an air bag could be severely injured by the airbag. In general, it is recommended to always seat children in the back seat when possible, even if there is no airbag in front of them.

To protect your children from the impact of airbags, they should always ride in the back seat with a lap/shoulder belt firmly fastened. Infants in rear-facing car seats should never ride in the front seat of a vehicle, especially those with passenger-side airbags. If the child is over one year of age and must ride in the front passenger seat of the vehicle, fasten them in the proper child safety seat or booster, secured with a lap/shoulder belt, and with the seat moved back as far as possible.