On 21 Dec 2004 17:21:54 GMT, Dave Hinz wrote:

On Tue, 21 Dec 2004 06:02:15 GMT, wrote:

I'm sorry, but you simply don't know what you're talking about.

Based on...what, exactly?

The evidence cited below, plus a lot of other confirming evidence.

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

Any particular part of that report, or would you like me to read the
whole 4-point type article to guess what you mean?

Good grief! You're not even willing to do the research when someone
spoon feeds you the references. I guess this is all pretty useless.

Note that below 52 Km/H a woman is more likely to be injured than
protected by an air bag.

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.

Well then.

In my book that's 'very little' additional protection.

You're saying that because only 9% additional _deaths_ were prevented,
that that's only "very little" additional protection?

Compared to the 45 percent offered by seat belts, yes that's very
little additional protection. Plus you have to factor in the increased
risk of injury at lower levels of severity.

Not everyone
injured in a crash is killed, I probably go to 50 injury accidents for
each fatality I go to. But, by your logic, those injuries don't count
because a death didn't happen?

Not hardly. However the statistics show that you are more likely to
suffer lesser degrees of injury if air bags deploy than if they do not
deploy.

My argument would be that not only
are those 9% of people not dead, but _more_ additional protection
was provided to people who were injured less severely _and_ didn't die.

Untrue, according to the numbers. If you are involved in a crash you
are more likely to suffer injury if you have an air bag and it deploys
in all but crashes that produce the most severe (Level 6 -- almost
certainly non-survivable) injuries.

As
far as injury reduction is concerned, air bags added 7 percent
protection to seat belts, an amount the NHTSA declared not
statistically significant.

Right, 7% (on top of 9% reduction in fatalities) matters to hardly
anyone.

Well, no. The term 'statisticaly insignifcant' means that it is simply
too close to call. Within the margin of error for the sample. It could
well be statistical noise. You can't draw any conclusions from it.

However if you break it down the picture becomes even worse.



Except, I suppose, for people in those 7 and 9 percent.

The 7 percent may not exist at all. That's the point of 'statistically
insignificant.' Note also that the 9 percent includes the people in
higher risk categories, such as very short people and children. Since
I don't fall into those categories, I am at even lower risk.

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.

Engineers _OF_ European cars. Didn't say those cars were _in_ europe,
but that they are _from_ europe.

Okay. But your implication is still incorrect. American manufacturers
(GM) started putting air bags in cars in 1985, years before they were
formally required. So the Europeans were not ahead of the Americans.

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.

Maybe safety was their motivation. Things other than greed do get
factored into designs sometimes, y'know.

Their primary motivation was more likely the same as the GM's -- They
knew air bags were probably coming and they needed to get experience
with them. The usual way to do this is to phase it in on high-end cars
as an option.

Or are you seriously going to suggest that big auto manufacturers are
more alturistic if their headquarters are in other countries? I
haven't noticed an upsurge in corporate citizenship since Dailmer
bought Chrysler.

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.

Yeah, according to you, 9% + 7% is "very little improvement".

Nope. 9 percent for all drivers in fatalities -- traded off for a
greater risk of lesser injuries. And a statistically insignificant
'improvement' -- which may or may not be a statistical artifact in
injuries in all categories.

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'.

I've made that point. In this thread.

Yet you seem to be ignoring it. In this thread.

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?

My personal experience as an EMT/Firefighter for a dozen years is at odds
with that statement.

In fact it was my EMT instructor (IIRC) who first pointed this
phenomenon out to me. He stressed the fact that even though belted
drivers didn't hit the wheel or the dash, it was important to handle
them as if they had suffered internal injuries because a lot of them
had.

However I don't propose to match my long-expired Level 1 EMT
certificate against your experience. My instructor's point was
confirmed by a search of the literature.

While there is a lot on seat belt injuries, I was unable to find a
single reference to steering wheel or dashboard injuries to drivers
wearing the now-standard 3-point harness.

Mister "ford-shaped bruise" was most decidedly
wearing his seat belt in that frontal crash.

I don't doubt your story, but again the research indicates that this
is extremely rare.

And again, you're more likely to suffer Level 5 or below trauma if
your air bag deploys than if you're simply using a seat belt.

Sometimes the wheel
comes _to you_, y'see, so all the restraint in the world isn't gonna
stop it from coming up to meet you when the dash rolls in on you.

Okay, so you're not talking about a crash where the driver is thrown
forward into the steering wheel. You're talking about an accident
where the entire structure of the car is deformed and the passenger
compartment collapses. That wasn't clear from your original statement.

However judging from the literature this is a tiny percentage of
accidents. Again, there's nothing I could find on seat belt injuries
from contact with the dash or steering wheel.

It also seems to me that an air bag isn't going to do a lot for you in
that case. It may prevent the initial violent impact, but you're still
going to get crushed as the structure (and the air bag) collapses.

But unlike the hard data, that's just my opinion.

Have you ever _been to_ a severe car crash?

Dozens of them. I was a police reporter. As a court reporter I also
sat through the lawsuits that followed, including reconstructions of
crashes and crah injuries.

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.

I see blatantly wrong statements like your "only happens if" above, and
point out the obvious problems.

Again, your position isn't supported by the evidence.

There are quite likely more subtle
problems with your point of view that I am missing, but they are
masked by things like "7+9=insignificant", y'see.

If someone can point these problems out to me I'd be very interested.
Since you can't even be bothered to read the references and your grasp
the concept of 'statistical insignificance' is non-existant, any such
problems that might exist are pretty obviously beyond you.

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.

Did you get your 7% better, and 9% better, backwards then?

Nope. The 7 percent may well be a statistical artifact. But when you
break injuries down by category, you find a higher percentage of
injuries for airbag versus belted drives at every category but level
6.

Besides, if your seat belt is properly adjusted you won't hit the
steering wheel.

Wrong. Absolutely and unquestionably wrong.

Not according to the evidence. If this happens there's no refererence
to it in the literature.

Also, if I understand you, in the cases you're talking about the
driver didn't hit the steering wheel, the steering wheel hit the
driver.

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?

Because you're making your decision on a flawed assumption.

I'm making my decision based on the facts as I know them, buttessed by
the research I have done.

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.

Those 9% and 7% of people alive and/or less badly injured would
probably disagree with your statement.

And the people injured by air bags might differ from your opinion.

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.

Just think of how bad it would have been without the pillow of air
and fabric, had she hit the wheel.

Since she was belted in, she would not have hit the wheel. That's the
point of 3-point restraints and they're very effective.


Beats eating the dashboard.

Since she was wearing a seat belt that wouldn't have happened. Reading
comprehension again.

And again, you haven't been to many crashes, have you.

Wrong.

Google for extrication photos and get back to me on what doesn't move to where.

Google for 'seat belt injuries' 'steering wheel' and 'dashboard' and
see what you find.

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.

Keep on repeating it, maybe someone will believe you.

I keep repeating it because it is true.

Why don't you go
off to a firefighting group and tell 'em that you'll never get hit
by the wheel or dash if you're wearing a seatbelt, and tell us how that
goes for you.

Again, you're talking about the dash or wheel hitting the occupants,
not vice-versa.

And since it's such an obvious proposition, how about some references
to how air bags prevent injuries in such cases? If you're correct,
that should be a no-brainer. Except I can't find anything like that.
And I have looked.

--RC

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