Drivers who are vulnerable can’t avoid air bag injuries unless they disable steering wheel air bags. Air bag deployment is automatic when a car is hit hard enough in an accident. An air bag explodes out of the steering wheel at 230 mph with 1200 lbs of force. If it strikes a driver in the face and the driver survives – a big “if” – the brain may never recover from the blow.
Who are the most vulnerable drivers? Small women who have to sit closer to the steering wheel than 10 to 12 inches are the most likely candidates for air bag injuries, including brain hemorrhage, severed brain stem, broken neck, facial fractures, blindness and other catastrophic injuries. The original standard for airbag development was the average man – 5 ft. 8 inches tall, weighing 180 lbs.
Is that discrimination against women? If it is, the federal government is leaving them at risk until 2012. That’s when new federal rules governing air bags go into effect, mandating car manufacturers to make air bags “as safe for women and children” as they are for the standard sized man. A word to the wise is necessary here, however. Anyone, man, woman or child, can suffer traumatic injuries if they are too close to an air bag when it is released from the steering wheel, the dashboard, or the side of the car.
