<VV> Fwd: New Car Black Boxes - No Corvair

[Frank DuVal]

Ken, I do not know where you got that statistic from, but it is 
obviously wrong. The number saved can not be 0. You could make up a 
number that might be believed, but zero?

One just needs to look at the number of automobile deaths per year in 
this country to see that something has changed over 50 years. Of course, 
many things have changed. But, speeds, number of miles driven, number of 
cars on the road, and number of crashes has increased. Lives are being 
saved. Air bags are just one of the reasons. But they are a reason.  We 
killed 50,000 people per year in the 60s and now just kill 30,000 people 
per year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

Here in Virginia, in the IIHS lobby, we have the two Chrysler vehicles 
that were in the FIRST head on accident between two cars, both outfitted 
with driver side airbags. You can touch them and study how damaged they 
are. Real life crash, not done in the laboratory.  These are 1989 Chryslers.

Results were: lives saved 2, deaths 0. These were first generation airbags.

I remember the news report from the accident, the trooper was expecting 
to see dead people in the cars (head on collision on a rural road 55 mph 
limit) and started asking the two people standing by what they had seen 
about the crash, then  found out they were the drivers!

http://articles.dailypress.com/1990-03-31/news/9003310059_1_air-bags-bags-or-automatic-seat-driver-s-side-air

Yes, out of the 700,000+ people killed in crashes between 1990 and 208, 
290 or so were caused by the airbag going off in low speed crashes. 
Kinda small number. Of course if it is you, then the statistic is large!

Frank DuVal

On 12/8/2012 8:49 AM, Ken Pepke wrote:
> The proverbial 'black box' has been with cars since the inception of the air bag safety device.  They were collected by the manufacturers after a deployment.  They served to supply airbag feedback to the engineers.  Information collected was used to computer simulate the 'bag effectiveness.  After quite a few fatal accidents the score was:  Death by airbag deployment … 120+, saves by airbag … 0.   This information gave the engineers the material to force the government to allow them to change the designs to the '
> second Generation' type which we now use.
>
> Ken P