THE FIRST THOUSAND AIRBAGS

With announced plans to introduce 1000 airbag-equipped vehicles during the next year, a question of interest is what results might be expected from these first thousand airbags. Available data on crash severity and injury occurrence in the combined city and county of Denver for the year 1969 were examined to permit some predictions about probable airbag deployment and injury prevention in an urban area. Similarly, crash and injury data for a 4-year period on the Ohio Turnpike were examined, with somewhat different resulting predictions. It is concluded that selective placement of the airbag-equipped vehicles might produce a significantly better data base for subsequent evaluation of the injury-prevention effectiveness of airbag deployment. /Author/