Efficacy of Side Airbags in Reducing Driver Deaths in Driver-Side Car and SUV Collisions

Abstract

Objective. To estimate the efficacy of side airbags in preventing driver deaths in passenger vehicles struck on the driver side.

Methods. Risk ratios for driver deaths per driver-side collision were computed for side airbag-equipped cars and SUVs, relative to vehicles without side airbags. Driver fatality ratios also were calculated for the same vehicles in front and rear impacts, and these were used to adjust the side crash risk ratios for differences in fatality risk unrelated to side airbags. Risk ratios were calculated separately for side airbags providing torso-only protection and side airbags with head protection; almost all head protecting airbags also had airbags protecting the torso.

Results. Car driver death risk in driver-side crashes was reduced by 37 percent for head protecting airbags and 26 percent for torso-only side airbags. Car driver death risk was reduced for older and younger drivers, males and females, and drivers of small and midsize cars, and when the striking vehicle was an SUV/pickup or a car/minivan. Death risk for drivers of SUVs was reduced by 52 percent with head protecting side airbags and by 30 percent with torso-only airbags. The effectiveness of side airbags could not be assessed for pickups and minivans due to the small number of these vehicles with airbags involved in crashes.

Conclusion. Side airbags substantially reduce the risk of car and SUV driver death in driver-side collisions. Making side airbags with head protection available to drivers and right front passengers in all passenger vehicles could reduce the number of fatalities in motor vehicle crashes in the United States by about 2,000 each year.

Keywords:

• Side Airbags
• Airbags
• Side Impact Collisions

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors gratefully acknowledge Drew Knoblauch and Matt Moore of the Highway Loss Data Institute for helping to compile information on vehicles with side airbags. The authors also thank Adrian Lund, Susan Ferguson, and Chuck Farmer of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety for their helpful suggestions on the statistical methods and drafts of the manuscript. This work was supported by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Notes

¹Death counts from Fatality Analysis Reporting System.

²Crash involvements from General Estimates System.

¹Death counts from Fatality Analysis Reporting System.

²Crash involvements from General Estimates System.

¹Expected number of deaths = (number of driver deaths in driver-side crashes with no side airbags/number of drivers involved in driver-side crashes with no airbags) × number of drivers in driver-side crashes with side airbags.

¹Death counts from Fatality Analysis Reporting System.

²Crash involvements from General Estimates System.