On 20 Dec 2004 19:00:40 GMT, Dave Hinz wrote:
On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 18:40:06 GMT, wrote:
On 20 Dec 2004 16:25:54 GMT, Dave Hinz wrote:
Yes, dozens of people a year vs. thousands saved.
I'm sorry, but you simply don't know what you're talking about.
Between their introduction in the 1980s and 1997, the NHTSB reported
about 2600 lives saved by air bags. Almost all of those people were
otherwise unsecured, which means almost all of them would have also
been saved by seat belts.
This is a far cry from your 'thousands' saved every year. Meanwhile,
87 people were killed by air bags in that same period. Studies clearly
show that air bags increase the possibility and severity of injury
see:
http://www.hcra.harvard.edu/pdf/airbags.pdf
Note that below 52 Km/H a woman is more likely to be injured than
protected by an air bag.
And more children have been killed by air bags than saved by them:
http://www.musc.edu/catalyst/archive...7passenger.htm
(See also the NHTSA report referenced below)
Remember, if you use your seat belt (which I do) an air bag has very
little positive effect on your safety.
Remember, just because you keep repeating a falsehood, that doesn't make
it true.
Just because you have a preconception doesn't make it true. Seat belts
reduce fatalities among drivers and front-seat passengers by about 45
percent. Air bags add, at most about an additional 9 percent
protection. In my book that's 'very little' additional protection. As
far as injury reduction is concerned, air bags added 7 percent
protection to seat belts, an amount the NHTSA declared not
statistically significant.
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/portal/site...ype= standard
The engineers of European cars had airbags in place _long_ before
the US required them, and they certainly didn't do it for cost reduction
reasons.
And your source for this statement? I can't find any. The earliest
mention I can find for air bags in Europe is in 1992, years after the
airbags first appeared on American cars.
As to why the Europeans did it -- Most of them did it because they
wanted to be able to sell their cars in the United States, at least
orignally.
Apparently those who work with automotive safety systems as part
of their job know more about it than, say, you.
Of myself, I know very little. But unlike, say, you. I'm willing to go
out and to the research to discover if what I do know is accurate.
The people who know automotive safety systems are unanamious that seat
belts work better than air bags. You'll notice none of them recommend
using air bags alone and all the literature refers to air bags as
'supplemental devices'.
Or are you one of these people who base your opinions on the exception rather than the rule?
I'm one of those people who prefer to have the choice.
OK, so you'd rather go face-first into a dashboard than an airbag? You
prefer hitting a steering wheel with your chest, rather than an air-filled
pillow?
That only happens if you're not wearing a properly adjusted seatbelt.
Or did you miss that part of my comment?
I don't know if you're deliberately attempting to set up a straw man
here or if you just don't read very carefully.
You can still get _serious_ chest trauma wearing a seatbelt,
by hitting the steering wheel. Been there, done that, read the bruise
on the guy's chest that had "droF" pressed into it.
And air bags increase the risk of injury to drivers and occupants in
most categories on the injury scale. See above.
Besides, if your seat belt is properly adjusted you won't hit the
steering wheel.
These other
folks who are supposedly so interested in my well-being are admantly
opposed to my having any choice at all. Which is what I find so
interesting.
Some choices are poor ones.
In this case the choice is not at all poor. Why should I trade a
significant risk of medium-level injury for a relatively small degree
of protection in the event of a major crash? Especially when I know
that if I am a member of certain classes the risk of injury is much
higher than for most people?
This is, at worst, not a clear cut decision and I should be able to
make it on my own. However the 'consumer advocates' among us were
nearly hysterical to prevent me from making a choice.
This is the part I find so interesting, not the relatively mundane
statistical details. It is interesting for the light it throws on
these people and their thinking. As a philosophical matter it says
some pretty ugly things about the way these people think and perhaps
what their real motives are. As a practical matter it gives us
guidance on how much credence to place on their continuing campaigns
for laws to make us 'safer.'
(This is reinforced, btw, by their track record with their arguments
and data in this case. For example their wild overestimate of how many
lives air bags would save. Their careful blurring of air bags as
supplements rather than replacements for seat belts, and so on.
However those are matters for another tirade.)
A basic understanding of the statistics involved would show that to any rational person.
Sorry, you're wrong. The statistics don't support your claims.
This is especially significant since the risk of injury from airbags
goes way up for certain classes of drivers.
Yes, up to something like 1:1000 per life saved, instead of 1:5000.
Still safer with than without.
You have not the least little idea what the facts are, do you? And
apparently you can't even be bothered to find out. So you support your
preconceptions with made-up numbers.
I'm sure my
five-foot-nothing mother-in-law woud love to be able to switch off the
airbags in her car. The last time she was in an accident the air bag
skinned her face.
Waaah. A bit of bag rash on the face.
That 'bag rash' damn near required skin grafts over most of her face.
It has caused corneal tears (severe eye damage) in others.
Beats eating the dashboard.
Since she was wearing a seat belt that wouldn't have happened. Reading
comprehension again.
She spent several days in the hospital solely
because of the airbags and the same thing -- or worse -- is probably
going to happen to her if she's in another accident where the airbags
deploy.
Right, because obviously the airbag is going to hit her harder than she'll
hit the harder parts of the car...sheesh.
Straw man/reading comprehension again. If you're wearing a seat belt
and it is properly adjusted you don't hit the harder parts of the car.
--RC
Projects expand to fill the clamps available -- plus 20 percent