Airbags were perhaps even more important than seatbelts in improving passenger safety. Their benefits, however, do not come without risk. Although the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has found that an overwhelming majority (96%) of air bag injuries are minor, serious injuries or death can—and do—occur when airbags inflate or deflate improperly.

Because air bags must inflate very rapidly to be effective, they come out of the steering wheel hub or instrument panel at over 100 mph. An airbag’s early or late deployment, and a driver or passenger’s position, affect greatly the likelihood that serious injury or death will occur in an airbag accident.

Vehicle-mounted sensors are supposed to control airbag inflation by measuring speed, impact, braking, occupant position, seatbelt use, and other factors. But a faulty sensor may trigger deployment too early after a crash, even if the time is measured in tiny fractions of a second. Airbags that fire too early can expose vehicle occupants to considerable force. If an occupant contacts an inflating airbag, he or she strikes an object traveling much faster than necessary to cause significant damage. A sensor problem can also result in late deployment, which may allow the airbag to get under an occupant’s chin, causing high neck movements and serious personal injury.

A driver or passenger may even be injured by impact with an airbag that otherwise deploys properly if sitting close to an air bag module when the air bag inflates. Such injuries may be sustained by unconscious drivers who are slumped over the steering wheel, unrestrained or improperly restrained occupants who slide forward in the seat during pre-crash braking, and even properly restrained drivers whose body types or visual capacity lead them to sit very close to the wheel.

Airbags may also harm or kill by deflating improperly or by not deploying at all. In fact, it appears that airbag defects preventing the airbag from deploying harm or kill more people than do defects causing premature deployment. Analyzing a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration database of all traffic fatalities over a six-year period, the Kansas City Star newspaper in 2007 found “that far more people had died from wrecks where airbags didn’t deploy than all of those who died from injuries caused by airbags that fired too easily or too forcefully.” The data showed that at least 1,400 drivers and front-seat passengers died from 2001 through 2006 in front-impact crashes involving vehicles whose airbags never deployed.

Airbags might often work as designed, but the injuries they cause when they fail can be severe, or even fatal. Vehicle manufacturers should be held responsible for the suffering or wrongful death that dangerous and defective airbags cause. If a company’s negligence has forced you or a loved one to endure serious injury after an airbag accident, you have the right to take legal action. Portland Oregon personal injury lawyer and products liability attorney Dane E. Johnson is available to assess your legal claims in a free case consultation. Call us toll free at (800) 714-3204 or contact us online.