ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 5, 1995 TAG: 9512070006
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Personal Health
SOURCE: JANE BRODY
Air bags save lives: more than 911 in the United States since 1987, and 374 last year alone, according to the National Center for Statistics and Analysis. More important, perhaps, just in terms of numbers, they have prevented many thousands of serious and deforming injuries.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports that there are 23 percent fewer deaths than expected among drivers involved in head-on and front-angle crashes of cars equipped with air bags
A four-year study of 2,300 accidents in New Jersey conducted by plastic surgeons at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick showed that motorists who used both lap and shoulder belts and drove cars equipped with air bags reduced their risk of serious facial injuries by 75 percent.
More than 33 million cars are equipped with driver-side air bags, and 15 million also have bags to protect front-seat passengers. All passenger cars manufactured after Sept. 1, 1997, will have to be equipped with air bags for both the driver and front-seat passengers.
But air bags are not perfect, and neither are the drivers and passengers who ride in cars with air bag protection. Air bags have inflated and injured and even killed passengers in vehicles involved in nothing more than a fender-bender that in all likelihood would not have injured anyone.
For example, one child died of a broken neck caused by an air bag that inflated when his grandmother bumped into a concrete wall while parking the car.
Although 43 percent of air bag deployments have resulted in at least one air-bag-related injury, the overwhelming majority of these injuries have been minor.
Scrapes and bruises were the most common injuries. A few cases involved minor cuts, fractures of the forearms or wrists, burns and, rarely, retinal detachments, caused by the force of impact, and hearing loss, caused by the noise of inflation.
The industry is working furiously to improve these devices so that inappropriate inflations and other preventable air-bag accidents will not occur.
The next generation of air bags, called ``smart bags,'' will employ sensors that can adjust inflations depending on whether occupants are belted, on their position in their seats, including the distance from the steering wheel or dashboard, and even on their size and weight. Several companies are also considering installing additional air bags to protect occupants in side collisions.
The occupants of vehicles also need improvement. In a country in which only 40 percent to 50 percent of drivers and front-seat passengers use lap-shoulder belts and 35 percent of young children ride unrestrained, air bags threaten to induce even further complacency about buckling up.
Yet the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration advises that seat belts remain the main source of protection in any kind of accident, while air bags offer ``supplemental protection'' only in front-end collisions.
Air bags do not protect drivers or passengers in side and rear-end collisions and rollovers; seat belts do. Last year, the administration estimates, seat belts alone saved almost 9,200 lives and prevented more than 211,000 moderate to critical injuries.
The four drivers who have suffered fatal air bag injuries to their heads, chests or both were unbelted when the accidents occurred.
Furthermore, Americans tend not to read directions or heed warnings, especially when they think ``there's nothing to it,'' as might seem to be the case with self-activated air bags.
Despite two years of repeated warnings and instructions posted since August 1994 on vehicle visors and infant car seats and in owner's manuals stating that babies in rear-facing car seats should not ride in the front seat of a vehicle with a passenger-side air bag, several infants have been killed by air bags because these warnings were ignored.
The child who died in his grandmother's car was sitting in the front seat and was not buckled in, which allowed the air bag to hit his head with undue force.
Even if your vehicle has dual air bags, never neglect to fasten the lap-shoulder belt when driving or riding in the front passenger seat. Infants under 20 pounds should always be placed in a rear-facing infant seat in the back seat of the vehicle.
For vehicles that have no back seat but have a passenger-side air bag, a manual device should be installed to allow the driver to disengage the passenger-side air bag when an infant is sitting in the front.
All children under 12 should ride in the rear and always be buckled in. Make it a rule of the road: the car does not start until everyone's seat belt is properly fastened, and that includes the shoulder belt, when there is one.
The presence of an air bag should not be taken as a license to drive faster or take extra chances on the road. Even with the fullest protection currently available - a lap-shoulder belt properly fastened and an air bag installed - fully half the accidents that could result in fatalities still do.
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