Miata Mailing List: September 1998, Message #220

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Matt Trostel wrote:

>>From Matt Delorenzo's article from Autoweek, August 6, 1996
>>
>>"USA Today, with an assist from our Washington correspondent Jayne
>>O'Donnell, recently published a report on the rise of fatalities
>>directly attributable to airbags."
>
> So, from say 1990, when there were no airbags and therefore no fatalities
> attributable to them, to 1996, when all new cars sold came with airbags,
the
> number of fatalities attributable to airbags increased.  Wow, there's
> a statistical insight.
>
> I'm sure the number of fatalities attributable to seatbelts has increased
> since their introduction, too, but you don't hear calls for them to
> be removed from cars.
>
> There's really no use discussing this topic if we don't look at both
sides:
> the number of people saved by the devices compared to the number of
people
> killed by them.

Oh boy, have you opened a can of worms, Matt!  I don't recognize your name,
so chances are that you're new to the list (Welcome!) and aren't familiar
with our previous "discussions".  At any rate, this has been the subject of
vigorous debate on several occasions.  Zandr Milewski posted an excellent
note a few months ago reviewing several articles posted on the NHTSA
website - from the horse's mouth, so to speak.  It would most definitely be
worth your while to search the archives for that note (use zandr and
airbag).

Now, fatalities attributed to seatbelts - I have great difficulty imagining
an accident scenario where the use of a seatbelt would result in a fatality
that would not have occurred if the occupant had not been restrained.  Oh,
sure, there are the people who used to claim "he/she would have survived if
he/she had been thrown clear of the wreck", or who would claim "he/she was
thrown clear and would have been killed if they had stayed in the vehicle".
However, I just don't buy it - I simply cannot see, from the mechanisms and
physics of impacts, forces, speeds, etc, involved, that seatbelts cause
fatalities that would otherwise have been avoided.  Those were the
arguments people used to use against seatbelts, but there are 30 years of
stats available - perhaps you can point me to some concrete numbers to show
seatbelt-caused fatalities?

Other big difference - these airbag fatalities have often, if not usually,
occurred in low-speed collisions, where injuries from the collision would
have been minor at most if not for the airbag.  This is a fair bit
different than a seatbelt - My seatbelt is not going to jump out at me and
strangle me if I happen to spill my Coke on the front passenger footwell
(see GM recall of a few months ago).  Again, please refer to the articles
quoted by Zandr for a discussion of the effectiveness of airbags in
reduction of injuries and fatalities in more serious collisions (preview -
subject to interpretation :-) they don't actually make that much difference
over a seatbelt).

Regards,
Gordon Choate (gchoate@shaw.wave.ca)
Calgary, Alberta
96 BRG/tan - both airbags disabled, just so you know where I stand!  (ok.
sit)