The Airbag Was Built To Save Lives. But Defective Airbags Can Turn Survivable Crashes Into Death Scenes

Families should obtain:

• The vehicle history report
• Repair invoices
• Insurance records
• Auction history
• Body shop records
• Photos from any prior crash.

8. The Injuries Do Not Match The Official Explanation

This is where families need to trust their instincts.

A defective airbag case may be hidden in the mismatch between the crash and the injuries.

Warning signs include a low or moderate-speed crash with fatal or life-changing injuries, such as:

• Severe eye or facial trauma
• Head injuries near the windshield A-pillar
• Partial ejection despite side curtain airbags
• Catastrophic chest injuries despite using seat belts
• A crash in which one occupant was protected while another was not.

The question is not simply, “Did the airbag deploy?”

The better questions are: Did it deploy on time? Did it deploy with proper force? Did the belt system hold the occupant in position? Did the side curtain stay inflated? Did the inflator rupture? Did the system protect the person in the crash that actually happened?

What Families Should Preserve Immediately

Todd Tracy warns that the insurance company will try to settle the claim quickly and dispose of the vehicle, and that its evidence will disappear into the insurance salvage system.

Preserve the vehicle in its post-crash condition.

Todd Tracy warns that the single biggest mistake families make is releasing the vehicle too quickly.

Once the car is crushed, repaired, stripped, or sold for parts, the most important witness in the case is gone.

In this video, Todd Tracy summarizes when you should contact him to determine if you have grounds for a defective airbag lawsuit.

History of the Airbag

The airbag began with a simple fear every parent understands.

In 1952, John W. Hetrick, a Pennsylvania industrial engineer and former Navy technician, was driving with his family when he swerved to avoid an obstacle. The near crash shook him.

Hetrick had worked around compressed-air systems in naval torpedoes. He began thinking about a cushion that could burst open inside a vehicle before a body slammed into the steering wheel, dashboard, or windshield.

On August 18, 1953, Hetrick received a patent for what he called a “safety cushion assembly for automotive vehicles.” It was a visionary idea, but the auto industry did not rush to embrace it.

The concept was ahead of the hardware. Early airbag designs relied on compressed air, but it could not inflate fast enough to protect an occupant during the violent milliseconds of a crash.

The modern airbag required something more explosive, more precise, and more dangerous if it failed.

That is the paradox of the airbag. It is one of the great lifesaving inventions in automotive history. It is also a small explosive device hidden inches from a driver’s face.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, automakers and suppliers were solving the problem. Sensors had to recognize a crash. Inflators had to generate gas almost instantly. The fabric bag had to burst from a steering wheel or dashboard, expand, cushion the occupant, and deflate before it became a hazard itself.

GM’s Father of its Cushion Restraint System

General Motors experimented with what it called the Air Cushion Restraint System in the 1970s.

Steve Syson was one of the fathers and creators of the cushion restraint system at General Motors. Syson is a principal expert on restraint system safety for the Tracy Law Firm in Dallas, Texas.

When Airbags Fail The Safety System Can Become The Danger

Syson says the airbag is not a simple safety cushion, but as part of a complex restraint system that depends on sensors, timing, seat belts, pretensioners, load limiters, crash algorithms, and the physical location of impact. When that system works, it can save a life. When it fails, an occupant can be thrown into the very danger the airbag was supposed to prevent.

Today’s vehicles can include frontal, torso, head, combination head-torso-pelvis, and side curtain airbags. That may sound reassuring, but Syson says one recurring problem in real-world defect cases is that side airbags often fail to deploy when needed. In other cases, they deploy too late.

Airbag Sensors Place In The Wrong Place

The problem, Syson explained, often begins with sensor placement.

Many vehicles are designed so their airbags perform well in government crash tests or Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tests.

But real-world crashes do not always occur at the precise angles or locations used in laboratory crash testing.

Syson said some side-impact sensors are positioned in the vehicle’s pillars, while many real-world impacts occur near the base of the windshield, where a vehicle may collide with another vehicle, a tree, or a pole.

If there is no sensor in the area where the crash force enters the vehicle, the side airbag may not fire.

That can leave the occupant unprotected at the moment of greatest danger.

Rollover Crashes

Rollover crashes present another problem. Many drivers assume that a vehicle equipped with side curtain airbags will protect them in a rollover. Syson said that the assumption is wrong unless the vehicle also has a rollover sensor and an airbag designed to stay inflated long enough.

Typical side airbags in a side-impact crash may remain inflated for only 50 to 150 milliseconds, less than the blink of an eye. A rollover, however, can last five or six seconds. In a low-speed rollover beginning at 30 to 35 miles per hour, the vehicle may travel roughly 100 feet before coming to rest. The occupant needs protection throughout that entire event.

That is why rollover-protection airbags, often called safety canopy airbags, must remain inflated for several seconds. They do this through coated fabric that prevents gas from bleeding out quickly and through inflators that generate lower-temperature gas so the airbag does not lose pressure as rapidly. A side airbag designed only for a quick side impact cannot provide the same protection in a prolonged rollover.

Front End Crashes

Timing is equally critical in frontal crashes.

Syson explained that a vehicle traveling 30 to 35 miles per hour may come to a stop in about 100 milliseconds and in a distance of roughly two feet. That leaves almost no margin for error. The airbag must deploy before the occupant moves too far forward.

The old rule of thumb, Syson said, is that the airbag should deploy about 30 milliseconds before the occupant has moved five inches. If it deploys on time, the airbag is essentially full before the occupant reaches it. If it deploys late, the occupant may already be too close.

That is when the airbag itself can contribute to catastrophic injury.

Syson said he has seen cases where an occupant moved ahead of the airbag before it deployed. When the airbag finally fired, it drove the person upward into the A-pillar, causing serious head injuries.

He also described cases where late deployment caused eye injuries, facial fractures, and disabling trauma. If the occupant is too close when the bag explodes open, the airbag no longer functions as a cushion. It becomes a violent force.

Narrow Frontal Offset Crashes

Narrow frontal offset crashes are a particular concern. These impacts occur toward the outside edge of the vehicle, near the headlight, rather than directly at the center of the front end.

Syson said airbag systems may deploy late or not at all in these crashes because sensors are often mounted near the radiator support or structural rails, not out near the headlight area. In an offset crash, the crash force may travel through the wheel, tire, suspension, and vehicle structure before reaching a sensor.

That delay can be enough to defeat the restraint system.

The seat belt does not necessarily solve the problem. Modern seat belts often use load limiters, which allow the belt webbing to release under load to reduce chest injuries.

Syson said these systems may limit belt load to roughly 700 pounds. For a 170-pound occupant, that may provide only about four Gs of deceleration, while the occupant, seat, and passenger compartment may experience forces of 20 Gs or more in a serious crash.

The result is that the occupant can move substantially inside the cabin.

That movement becomes especially dangerous if the airbag and belt pretensioner are both late. Pretensioners are designed to remove slack from the belt and pull the occupant back into position.

But Syson said in many vehicles, the pretensioner is triggered by the same sensor system that triggers the airbag. If the airbag fires late, the pretensioner may also fire late. By then, the occupant may already be out of position.

Syson described seeing load-limiter movement ranging from 8 to 18 inches. If the shoulder moves eight inches, the head may move 10 to 12 inches. If the shoulder moves 18 inches, the occupant can strike the dashboard before the airbag deploys.

Testing For Real World Crashes

That is the hidden danger in a defective restraint system. The consumer sees the word “airbag” and assumes protection. But the real question is whether the entire restraint system responds properly in the actual crash, not merely in the crash test the manufacturer designed around.

Syson said some manufacturers do better than others. He cited examples in which some Ford, BMW, and Mercedes systems fire pretensioners earlier or at lower thresholds, improving the chance that the belt will hold the occupant in position before the airbag deploys.

But his broader criticism was blunt. In his view, many manufacturers focus on tests that produce good public ratings. Passing government and insurance-industry crash tests can bring five-star ratings, favorable publicity, and stronger sales. But doing well in a laboratory test is not the same as protecting people in the wide variety of crashes that happen on real roads.

He also warned about overreliance on computer simulations. Simulations can be valuable, he said, but only if they are validated against real crashes or known crash tests. Without validation, a computer model may not accurately predict what happens when metal bends, sensors delay, belts release, and a human body moves inside a collapsing vehicle.

A defective airbag may be involved when the airbag failed to deploy, deployed late, ruptured, did not stay inflated, failed in a rollover, failed in a side impact, or worked in a laboratory-style crash but not in the real-world crash that killed or maimed someone.

Families do not need to prove the defect at the scene.

They need to recognize the warning signs and preserve the evidence before it disappears.

The airbag remains a triumph of engineering. But it is not magic. It is a system of chemicals, sensors, software, wiring, and human decisions. When that system works, it can mean the difference between a funeral and a survivor walking away.

When it fails, the safety device becomes the weapon.

In the video below, Todd Tracy and restraint system expert Steve Syson fully explain why airbags fail and when families may have a legal case.