Game Changer: Airbags

Buying a new car without airbags would today be seen as ludicrous and dangerous. Yet for decades after the life-saving device was invented, it was ignored by drivers and car-makers alike.

Airbags in rudimentary form had existed since the 1920s, inflated by compressed air but too slow to be of real value.

Improved designs surfaced in the early 1950s, as was an improved system of impact detection which triggered the bag in 30 milliseconds.

Ford and General Motors both held the rights to fit airbags to their cars but the devices only made their automotive debut during the 1970s.

However, General Motors’ foray into Passive Occupant Safety (we won’t use the acronym) ended in 1977 due to “lack of consumer interest”.

Four years later the idea was adopted by Mercedes-Benz and within a decade most European and some US manufacturers were offering bags as standard fittings or options.

Japan and Australia followed and by 2010 there was not a passenger car on our market without at least a driver’s front airbag.

The principle of the automotive airbag is simple, but the mechanism for reliable triggering very complex.

Development of airbags which incorporated explosive inflation was pioneered by Japanese engineer Yasuzaburou Kobori. He demonstrated his device in 1964 and was granted patents for the design but died in 1975 before airbags became widely used.

Mercedes-Benz would call its combination of devices a ‘Supplemental Restraint System’ (SRS), with the cushioning bag intended to work in conjunction with a seat belt, not replace it.

Mercedes-Benz also moved away from compressed air inflation of the bag, instead using electricity to trigger a chemical reaction that produced a large volume of mainly nitrogen gas.

The SRS system became optional on new W126 Series sedans and the Mercedes-Benz 380SEC Coupe at an extra cost of 1525 Deutschmarks. In the context of a car costing over 60,000DM that would seem cheap, but during its first year of availability the new safety device was fitted to fewer than 3000 cars.

Adoption did flourish though, and by 1986 Benz and a couple of US brands (Ford and Chrysler) were installing them into their newest designs. Porsche from 1987 was the first to fit driver and passenger bags to a production car – that car being the Porsche 944 Turbo.

Australia didn’t participate until the 1990s, with GMH offering a driver’s airbag in the VR Holden Commodore. Ford, Toyota and Mitsubishi followed soon after, with Ford charging $900 to instal a single airbag in the EF Falcon.

Upmarket imports had them as standard and by the 1998 model year, dual front airbags were legal requirements in all US-built passenger vehicles.

Early in the 21st century, airbags were not only required but had begun to surround vehicle occupants. Side, leg and knee injuries were reduced, however there were unintentional consequences including increasing vehicle weight and design compromises such as the dangerously thick pillars fitted to models like the VE Holden Commodore.

This topic cannot be adequately covered without mentioning a dark chapter in the airbag’s deployment and the name ‘Takata.’

The Takata Corporation had existed since 1933 and began supplying airbags in 1988. Almost immediately there were problems, with Honda in 1998 flagging issues with Takata airbags.

During subsequent years, reports from across the world and involving multiple brands confirmed that the triggering mechanism was firing shards of metal into the vehicle’s passenger compartment when bags deployed, resulting in numerous injuries and at least seven deaths.

2013 saw the largest recall in automotive history to check and in many cases replace airbags in over 100 million vehicles.

Despite this issue and minor recalls due to other faults, the airbag has proved its worth and is responsible for limiting injury and saving lives in millions of motor vehicle collisions.

Other articles in the Game Changer series: