Air Bag Related Injuries in NHTSA's Crash Databases

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been monitoring and gathering information on air bag related injuries and fatalities in its data collection programs since air bags were introduced. As frontal air bag technology has progressed from barrier certified (a.k.a. first generation) to sled certified (a.k.a redesigned) and to advanced certified air bag systems, there has been a drastic reduction in the number of injuries and fatalities attributed to these air bags. More recently developed air bags designed to protect occupants in side impacts and rollovers also do not appear to pose a serious threat. The purpose of this paper is to describe the evolution of air bag injuries in all types of air bags collected in NHTSA’s in-depth investigation and crash report based programs. Additionally, the paper discusses future plans for collection of air bag and injury information as NHTSA’s data collection programs are redesigned in the Data Modernization Project.