Seat belt usage is not zero percent in the United States nor is it one hundred percent in Europe. Yet, air bag systems have been and are still being designed in these areas as if this were the case. Additionally, very few air bag deployments occur in the United States under impact conditions for which they were designed. In fact percentage wise this is less than 6% for speeds greater than 25 mph and for 30 mph or greater, less than 2%. In this paper the concern is the relatively large number of air bag deployment injuries, which are occurring. It is often inferred that these deployment injuries are more or less the price which must be paid in order to have high speed crash protection. These injuries are not however, believed to be necessary. (A)
Samenvatting