The 152 deaths are only those airbag-caused deaths that NHTSA=s Special Crash Investigation (SCI) Division has investigated and confirmed. In 1988, NHTSA decided that their SCI team would no longer investigate all  accidents where there were airbag-caused fatalities.  There were too many. Since the mission of the Special Crash Investigation Unit was to help develop new, safer airbag systems, they would only evaluate the effectiveness of new airbag systems. From then on,  only the accidents that that would help automotive engineers design safer airbags.  would be investigated. 

Sheree Bobrowski, a surgeon living in Riverdale, NY, was in a very minor fender bender in 1992 but it damaged her neck so badly that 5 vertebrae had to be surgically removed. Today she can=t work at all and will have to wear a neck brace and use crutches for the rest of her life. Worse, she is in constant pain. There were no other injuries in the accident and if she had not had an airbag, she would have walked away.

Important research by leading emergency medicine physicians like Dr Wm. Smock, of the University of Louisville, shows that everyone is in danger of severe injury; not just those who fall into NHTSA=s specially endangered categories. The airbag cover blows off at around 200 mph.

Dr Smock compares the impact of this detonating airbag cover, which also doubles as the horn cover on most cars, to driving along at 200 mph with your arm out the window. Suddenly your arm hits a metal sign covered in  plastic. The force is enormous; about six times greater than the human body can stand. Dr Smock=s research documents several example cases in which fingers were amputated, arms crushed (i.e. more than 30 fractures in the arms) from having hands or arms near the airbag cover. If your arm, hand or face is in front of the cover when the airbag detonates, the injuries can be disabling, if not fatal. 

And the problem is made worse because we all learned to drive with certain habits. For instance, keeping your hands near the top of the wheel, blowing the horn just before impact, or crossing one arm over the steering wheel cover when turning are all methods we learned many years ago. But they all can lead to severe injuries when airbags are involved.

NHTSA has always claimed, on one hand that airbags are Asafe@, but also is giving auto manufacturers until 2012 to manufacture a vehicle with a Asafe@ airbag (extended from the 2006 original deadline because no manufacturer is close yet). 

But nobody knows what a Asafe@ airbag will be. Will it keep the bag from going off if a child is in the front passenger seat? What if the driver or passenger is out of position when the impact occurs? These are issues now being pondered by automobile engineers.

Meanwhile, each year new experimental airbag systems are being produced. Mercedes has child=s car seat that turns off the airbag on the passenger side  but also turns the bag back on if the passenger weighs more than 70 pounds. In late 2000, Cadillac introduced an airbag system with 38 separate sensors that tries to determine who is in the passenger seat so that the bag=s force can be adjusted to account for children. And the other car makers are working on their own versions too. The only thing the new systems all seem to have in common is that they are complex, electro-mechanical systems. And in the real world these complex new systems require a lot of real world testing before they can be considered dependable. Remember, they need to deploy in an accident in less than 50 thousandths of a second, even if the accident happens 20 years after the car is made.

All this may lead to another foreseeable disaster. The new regulations will no longer allow airbag on off switches in cars after 2012, under the assumption that the systems will be infallibly safe by then. Never mind that there have been more than 4 million cars recalled for airbag related problems since 1996. And compared to the new airbag systems, the recalled cars had very simple and straightforward airbag systems. Until now, almost all airbag systems have used momentum-actuated crash sensors located in the front of the car to signal a detonation impulse. How likely is it that the new, highly complex, electro- mechanical systems with multiple sensors will be infallible in real life applications after 2002? Ask any engineer with real world experience.  

This proposal makes sense if we have to have airbags at all. But if airbags were optional and manufacturers had to worry about defending them in court today, it=s unlikely that they would be offered even as an option. The liability of installing a "safety device" that severely endangers most of the population would be too great for any manufacturer. But because Congress requires them in all passenger cars, trucks and vans today, the manufacturers are protected by the mandate unless the air bags do not work as designed.

Today there are more than 130 million vehicles on the road with airbags. Leave the situation as it is, and everyone driving in front of an airbag or sitting in the passenger seat is in danger. Everyone should be able to protect themselves and their families from these government- mandated menaces. 

Robert Brown is director of ASafe Airbags or No Airbags@, an organization recently formed for airbag safety and repeal of the airbag laws. Mr. Brown is also manager of Sensible Solutions, LLC a company that installs airbag switches, pedal extenders and instructions for safely disconnecting your own airbags. You can visit them on the web at www.airbagonoff.com or contact them at 301-473-7908 for information on safe driving habits with airbags, how to get airbag switches,and how to protect yourself and your family.