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Despite Many Air Bag No

Fires, NHTSA To Keep Current Airbag Regulations

By MIKE CASEY

The Kansas City Star

A new federal safety study, in response to stories last fall in The Kansas City Star , found that hundreds of people died in traffic accidents in which their front airbags inexplicably did not deploy.

But federal officials said they do not think the number of deaths is significant enough to change airbag regulations.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that 576 people died in traffic crashes from 2001 through 2006 in which their front airbags for unknown reasons did not fire.

Of that number, the agency estimated that 360 victims “could have benefited” if the airbags had inflated. They acknowledged their estimate was based on just a few accidents.

Furthermore, the agency's study showed that hundreds of other victims died in accidents in which there were reasons for the airbags to not fire, such as low-impact crashes.

“It doesn't look to be a major national epidemic,” said spokesman Rae Tyson, who added the agency would continue to monitor airbag performance and take regulatory action when necessary.

A consumer safety advocacy group, however, was shocked that the agency did not think that hundreds of deaths was enough to warrant further investigation.

“I'm appalled by the prospect that it takes an epidemic for NHTSA to act,” said Bob Shull, deputy director for auto safety and regulatory policy for Public Citizen, which is based in Washington.

Shull said NHTSA should devote more resources to finding out why the airbags did not deploy.

The Star and NHTSA analyzed the agency's Fatality Analysis Reporting System database, also known as FARS, which records traffic fatalities.

Both the newspaper and the agency found that at least 1,400 drivers and front-seat passengers died in front-impact crashes in which airbags never deployed from 2001 through 2006. But the newspaper did not estimate how many lives might have been saved.

NHTSA officials also examined a different and smaller database called the National Automotive Sampling System, also known as NASS, which contains more details about accidents but captures just a small percentage of fatalities.

They acknowledged that their study did not have a confidence level — a percentage researchers use to indicate how sure they are of their findings. But Tyson said they were “comfortable” with the results.

As part of its study, the agency looked at 21 fatalities in the NASS database out of the 1,400 traffic accident deaths and then made projections. Experts said such a study would have shortcomings because the sample size was so small and not selected at random.

“You can't come up with a reliable conclusion” from that small of a nonrandom sample, said Daniel Mundfrom, a statistics professor at the University of Northern Colorado.

Still, the president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said NHTSA's study shed light on airbag nondeployments because it analyzed a database that contains detailed information about crashes.

“It was a good move on their part,” said Adrian Lund. He noted that the agency's estimate of victims who could have benefited from an airbag was based on a small number and that he would like to know more about why some airbags did not deploy.

The Star's findings prompted a U.S. House subcommittee to launch an investigation last fall into airbag effectiveness. That investigation is continuing, officials said.

Tyson said the agency's study did not address why the airbags did not deploy.

Federal agency to keep airbag regulations 

“There are probably 360 answers to that question,” Tyson said in reference to the estimated 360 accident victims who NHTSA said could have benefited from airbag deployment. “Airbags are complex systems that are designed to respond to a million different scenarios.”

NHTSA officials also noted that a nondeployment did not necessarily mean that the airbag system was defective. For example, they found three instances of airbags not deploying because they had not been replaced following deployments in previous accidents.

NHTSA officials said they based some of their findings on a review of about 100 detailed accident reports in the smaller NASS database. The agency said five people died in accidents in which their experts would expect deployment and the airbag could have helped the victims.

Based on those five fatalities, the agency arrived at its 360 estimate for victims who might have benefited from an airbag deployment. To get that number, the agency multiplied five by 72 because the NASS database captures one out of every 72 occupant fatalities in passenger vehicles.

As the newspaper reported last year, the agency also found that its FARS database contained errors about whether airbags did or did not deploy in certain accidents.

In an effort to be conservative, The Star's analysis excluded fatal crashes that involved principal impacts to the left or right fenders. The newspaper also excluded victims who were ejected or died when their vehicles rolled over, crashed and caught fire or were submerged in water. Also, the newspaper excluded victims in vehicle models in which airbags were not standard equipment.

Those steps and others eliminated at least 3,000 fatalities.

NHTSA criticized the newspaper's analysis, arguing that it overstated the number of airbag nondeployments.

But automotive-safety researchers, statisticians and other experts — including former NHTSA directors — all said that the newspaper's methodology was acceptable