Airbags are designed to work together with seat belts to save your life. Wear your seat belt.
Airbags have saved thousands of lives and prevented countless injuries since becoming standard in cars and other vehicles. They’re a great invention. However, airbags have earned themselves a bad reputation: though they save lives on the whole, airbags have killed people and continue to do so each year. These deaths are some of the most preventable ones in the world.
The number-one reason that airbags can kill: drivers and front-seat passengers don’t wear their seat belts. Airbags and seat belts are safety tools that should be used correctly together in order to minimize the risk of injury during car crashes. The seat belt is designed to prevent your body from moving forward with the momentum your car had just before the collision. Airbags are meant to cushion your torso and head and prevent contact with the hard interior surfaces of the vehicle. For this reason, they move in the opposite direction that your body does. They inflate extremely quickly, sometimes at 400kph, and even a soft fabric that hits the head or chest at that speed could break bones and cause severe internal injuries.
When an airbag and seat belt work together properly, the seat belt prevents your whole body from flying forward, and the airbag cushions your upper chest so that your chest and head do not hit the steering wheel, dashboard or front of the car.
When you do not wear your seat belt, the two safety devices cannot work together properly; your body moves toward the airbag at high speeds, and the airbag moves toward your body at even higher speeds. During this collision, airbags can kill you.
Now that you know how airbags and seat belts work together, you can see why most of the people killed by airbags were not wearing their seat belts. Unfortunately, airbags have also killed some people who were wearing seat belts. Almost all of these victims were either infants who were put in rear-facing car seats in the front seat, small children whose heads were level with the airbag during inflation, and female drivers with smaller frames who were too close to the steering wheel (where the driver-side airbag is located). Seat belt or not, airbags can kill passengers who are too small to be in the front passenger seat. Don’t run that risk! As a driver, use your seat belt and sit at a safe distance from the steering wheel (18 – 20 centimeters should be between your breastbone and the wheel).