I think that this is the key argument fir the deaths caused. But, I was under the impression that the effectiveness of air bags compared to their hazards was coming into question in testing anyway. a seat belt saves many more lives than an airbag?
An improvement is an improvement. A flaw of seatbelts is that some people still die when they wear them. That's not a valid argument to not wear seatbelts.
Since 1975, seatbelts are credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Try as I might, I can find zero deaths attributed to lacking AM radio in a car.
These two things are no where near alike. No one will take this line of argument seriously.
> Air bags have saved more lives than safety belts, haven't they?
That depends on how you count: no life saved by an airbag would be saved without airbag AND safety belt. An airbag alone saves no lives.
And I still doubt the airbag+belt combination made a bigger dent in the statistic than the introduction of the safety belt did (Although it's hard to compare due to completely different time periods)
And how frequent are those situations compared to those where people accelerate too quickly and lose control of their car? That's like the argument that seatbelts are dangerous or lethal in some situations. Sure they are. But in all other situations they save lives and reduce injuries.
And people can still get hurt in car accidents, so we should just get rid of seatbelts, airbags, and crumple zones and dispense with the illusion of safety.
> Air bags have saved more lives than safety belts, haven't they
Not by a long shot - seat belts reduce the chance of death by 60-70% across all crashes. Airbags reduce the chance of death by 15% in frontal collisions, and very little for other types[1]. The airbag isn’t going to much good if you’ve been ejected from the car.
If you could show that seat belts save lives, which I think you can, then that's kind of interesting. In any case, I meant the question to be rhetorical.
I guess you aren't familiar with the arguments people make against seatbelts. Arguments like "They kill more than they save" "If my car catches fire I want to be throw out of that car not trapped in it"
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