When it comes to autos, safety is one of the top priorities for automakers. This is with good reason as vehicles used to be terribly unsafe and, in some cases, rolling death traps.
Today, we're far from that.
In fact there's just about an air bag for everything. In a crash, interiors turn into pillows. But, not all of these safety features are beneficial, according to the latest study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
According to IIHS, knee air bags may actually be more harmful in certain situations. This makes me wonder:
Have automakers have strayed too far from the original intent to make crashes safer for occupants and now are simply innovating on safety for safety's sake.Do we really need knee air bags? Do we really need seat belt air bags? Do we really need air bags on the outside of vehicles for pedestrians?
What say you, Spies?
Airbags are essential, lifesaving devices that have prevented tens of thousands of deaths. More airbags, one might assume, would provide even greater protection.
That isn’t always the case, a recent IIHS study shows. One increasingly common type of airbag — the knee airbag — has a negligible effect on injury risk and, in fact, may even increase it in some cases, researchers found...
...Knee airbags had only a small effect on injury measures recorded by dummies in IIHS driver-side small overlap front and moderate overlap front crash tests. In the small overlap test, knee airbags were associated with increased injury risk for lower leg injuries and right femur injuries, though head injury risk was slightly reduced. The airbags had no effect on injury measures in the moderate overlap test...
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