Q: Do airbags work better than seatbelts for protecting you in a crash? And if they do, shouldn’t the law be that you only have to wear seatbelts if your car doesn’t have airbags?
A: Seatbelts are arguably the most effective thing that has ever happened to traffic safety. I won’t quote all the studies, but depending on which one you look at, seatbelts reduce fatalities in crashes by 50 to 70 percent. That’s a huge increase in survivability for a minimal effort by a driver (the couple seconds it takes to buckle up) and a modest cost to the manufacturer (the price of the seatbelts).
Here’s another way to look at it. In Washington we have a 94 percent seatbelt use rate. Only about six out of every hundred people on the road are not wearing a seatbelt. However, about twenty percent of the people killed in car crashes in our state are not wearing a seatbelt. That six percent non-seatbelt-user group is severely over-represented in fatal crashes.
I think I’ve established that seatbelts are effective, but what about airbags? When it comes to surviving a crash, airbags alone are not nearly as helpful as seatbelts. Airbags only reduce fatalities in car crashes about 15 percent when the driver isn’t wearing a seatbelt. That makes sense; in order for an airbag to be helpful, it needs to be deployed where you’re at. If you’re in your seat, it’ll help protect you. Without a seatbelt, you could be thrown around to a lot of places, both inside and outside your car, while the airbag is still just doing its thing protecting whoever is in the seat.
When a driver wears a seatbelt and has an airbag, the airbag doesn’t add 15 percent to the 50-plus percent reduction in fatality rates that a seatbelt offers. Combined it’s only a couple percent better than seatbelts alone.
Clearly, airbags are not a great substitute for seatbelts, and a law that requires drivers to wear a seatbelt only if the car doesn’t have airbags would be a move away from safer roads. Maybe the better question is, “If airbags have such a minimal impact on the survivability of a crash compared to seatbelts, why are they such a big deal?”
So far we’ve been talking about fatal crashes, but just because a seatbelt saves your life it doesn’t mean you won’t be seriously injured. That’s where airbags really shine. An article in the International Journal of Critical Illness and Injury Science compared the injuries of two occupants of a vehicle in a serious crash. Both were wearing seatbelts but only one had the benefit of an airbag. I wouldn’t recommend reading the article during lunch, or if you have a sensitive stomach, because the injury photos are graphic. Instead I’ll summarize: With only a seatbelt, the pattern of injury corresponds to concentrated areas where the seatbelt is against the body. This results in more severe intestine, kidney and spinal injuries. An airbag spreads out the impact and reduces the trauma to the body.
Airbags are a supplement to seatbelts. You may have seen the letters “SRS” on the dash and steering wheel of some cars. That’s an abbreviation for “Supplemental Restraint System.” Airbags were never intended to replace seatbelts, but are very effective at reducing injury when used with seatbelts. Still, wearing a seatbelt is your best strategy for surviving a car crash.
I’ll just add that even better than surviving a car crash is not getting into one in the first place. Being an alert and educated driver can help you avoid becoming part Washington’s crash data.
On a final note, we’re in the middle of seatbelt emphasis patrols, and local law enforcement agencies are out looking for drivers who are not wearing a seatbelt. If you’re part of that six percent that still doesn’t buckle up, this would be a good time to join the 94 percent and develop a new habit.