Dear Mahatma: Since vehicles have been equipped for years with air bags, why are there still so many fatalities in car crashes? Are air bags not as effective as expected? -- Sky Walker
Dear Sky: When faced with such matters, we go immediately to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Why? Because nobody wants to reduce traffic accidents, injuries and fatalities more than the insurance industry.
Why? Because the insurance industry has a vested financial interest in highway safety. In addition to having a vested human interest.
Is this a cynical view on our part? Yes. What is a cynic? Someone who sees the world as it really is.
The IIHS says this, quoting a 2015 study: Front airbags reduce driver fatalities in frontal crashes by 29%, and fatalities of front-seat passengers age 13 and older by 32%.
Quoting another study, IIHS says side airbags that protect the head reduce a car driver's risk of death in driver-side crashes by 37% and an SUV driver's risk by 52%.
Not that a choice exists in whether a vehicle does or doesn't have air bags. Front airbags have been mandated in new passenger vehicles since the 1999 model year. Side bags aren't mandated, the IIHS says, but nearly all manufacturers include them as standard equipment, in order to meet federal side protection requirements.
The National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration has estimated that as of 2017, more than 50,000 lives had been saved by front air bags.
Now to the second part of the question: Why are there still so many fatalities?
The sad truth is that about 43,000 traffic fatalities occurred in the United States in 2021, a 10.5% increase over the previous year. That information comes from the NHTSA.
As for the why, we have to remember that in the previous year, 2020, a whole lot of America was living, working and studying at home, confined to slow the spread of the covid-19 virus. In 2021, Americans got back on the road.
It may also be, as many police agencies have described, that the accident rate was exacerbated by risky driving behaviors embraced during the pandemic. Those behaviors included speeding and less use of seat belts.
In our view, there is also something called moral hazard. This is an insurance or economic term that says people have less incentive to guard against risk when they are protected from its consequences. So some people may drive more dangerously because they believe their vehicle's safety systems will protect them.
May we offer a personal anecdote?
A few years ago we were driving on Maumelle Boulevard. At a traffic light, a driver in a huge SUV turned in front of us.
Bam! Our airbags inflated. Neither of us -- No. 1 Son was in the passenger seat -- were hurt. We were also wearing our seat belts.
Moral hazard? Not in our tribe.
Vanity plate: GRAMVAN. We suspect Gram does a lot of pick up and drop off.
Fjfellone@gmail.com