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The 'smart' air bag case: air bags are intended to save lives, but they may also cause injury. As air bag technology has become more complex, so has air bag litigation.

Article Excerpt
Today, we live in the so-called smart air bag era. Overall, air bags fire with significantly less force than they did just a few years ago, and air bag systems are designed to detect children in the front seat and drivers sitting too close to the air bag. In such cases, air bags may either not deploy or deploy with minimal force.

Depending on the severity of a crash, air bags may deploy at different levels of force: High-speed crashes require air bags to deploy more aggressively than low-speed crashes do. All these changes were implemented after an outcry over air-bag-related deaths, mostly of children and women, in the 1990s.

In theory, air bag litigation should be assigned to the ranks of cases like those involving breast implants and intrauterine devices--cases that faded away as the products got safer or were removed from the marketplace. However, that has not proved to be the case. The sad fact is that air bags remain dangerous and continue to cause injuries and deaths. While regulations and air bags have changed, auto manufacturers continue to cut corners to save costs. Side air bags have also come into play, and they are completely unregulated by the government.

Standard 208

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208 is the controlling federal regulation with which auto manufacturers must comply. (1) In 1984, it specified that by 1987 to 1990, manufacturers had to phase in passive restraints, which include air bags. It was later amended to allow manufacturers to delay including passenger air bags in cars until the 1994 model year, if the driver's side of those cars did have an air bag. Additional amendments required vans and light trucks to include air bags. By 1994, most passenger cars had both a driver and passenger side air bag, and by 1998 the same was true for vans and light trucks. (2)

FMVSS 208 has undergone several changes, and different versions apply to any given case, depending on the vehicle's model year. The basic changes lie in the type of testing and the warnings to be posted in the vehicle.

Warnings were not mandatory in vehicles until 1994. (3) Then, warnings on sun visors were required to warn occupants to "not install rearward-facing child seats in any front passenger seat position," "not sit or lean unnecessarily close to the air bag," and "not place any objects over the air bag or between the air bag and yourself." Occupants were also told, "For maximum protection in all types of crashes, you must always wear your seat belt." In addition, manufacturers had to include information and warnings about the air bag in the owner's manual. (4)

Certain changes were made for vehicles manufactured after February 25, 1997; probably the most basic one was that occupants were no longer warned to "not sit or lean unnecessarily close to the air bag." Instead, they were told to "sit as far back as possible from the air bag." (5) Also, temporary labels had to be affixed to the steering wheel or dashboard on the passenger side with warnings similar to those on the visor. (6)

Originally, manufacturers had to perform frontal barrier crash tests-crashing a vehicle into a fixed barrier at speeds up to and including 30 mph. The barrier had to be perpendicular to the line of travel or at any angle up to 30 degrees left or right. The tests were to be run with seat-belted and unbelted 50th-percentile male dummies.

Generally, manufacturers complied with the regulations by running six tests: a first set with belted dummies in vehicles traveling at 90 degrees, 30 degrees right, and 30 degrees left. The second set used unbelted dummies at the same angles. In each case, certain injury criteria, as measured by sensors in the dummies, had to be met. Accelerations to the head and forces to the chest and the femur could not exceed specified limits. (7)

In March 1997, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) adopted a rule to address the urgent problem of air bags causing injuries in low-speed crashes, expediting the development of depowered air bags. (8) Under the rule, which was intended to be temporary, the unbelted crash-test requirements were amended so that manufacturers could conduct sled tests instead of barrier crash tests, which are more expensive. (9) In addition, neck-injury criteria were added to the test, including measurements of flexion and extension...

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