Safety Sells: Market Forces and Regulation
in the Development of Airbags
by Martin Albaum
Foreword
Accidents are the leading cause of death among people
in the United States under the age of 45. Motor vehicle accidents
are by far the leading cause of accidental deaths. About fifty years
ago research first showed that the major part of these deaths --
and serious injuries -- was caused by crash forces hurling people
against the inside of the vehicle or out of it. Rather than prescribing
the traditional remedy for accidents -- take care and avoid crashes
-- a new school of safety researchers and their allies among consumer
groups pointed to ways of keeping people restrained during the crash.
The first method was the seat belt. When it became obvious that
few people were using the seat belts in their cars, airbags were
developed because they would restrain automatically. In 1966 Congress
passed a law setting up a federal agency to set safety standards
that car manufacturers would have to follow. Providing seat belts
was in the first group of standards issued. Shortly after that the
agency began considering airbags as part of a possible passive (later
called automatic) restraint.
Requiring airbags and the consequences of doing this
have been among the most contentious issues on the federal regulatory
agenda for the past thirty years. These issues have been intertwined
with others concerning both the level of seat belt use and its requirement.
But the more controversial issue has been requiring airbags. The
opponents of this requirement proposed instead requiring the use
of seat belts. So airbag regulation is the focus of this study although
seat belt issues have a leading role. For most of the story many
participants in the debate viewed airbags and seat belts as alternative
restraints. In recent years they have come to be regarded as two
parts of an integrated system, which could save most crash victims
from death or serious injury.
The regulatory framework within which airbags developed
in the United States came about largely because auto manufacturers
seemed not to be paying enough attention to producing safer vehicles.
They did not exactly flaunt the motto that safety did not sell,
but they concentrated on other sales appeals. The regulation that
emerged after long wrangling did not specify airbags, but they triumphed
over other passive restraints -- namely automatic belts -- because
customers believed they were safer. Many other countries -- Canada,
Australia, and much of Europe -- also have experienced the rapid
spread of airbags, but this is because favorable experience in the
United States led to customer demand elsewhere. Market forces led
to airbags’ spread in these countries where regulation is
otherwise pervasive.
At first some American automakers -- Ford and General
Motors -- actively participated in developing airbags. But they
turned against regulations requiring passive restraints (which meant
airbags for most of this history) until in the early 1990s driver
airbags proved to have strong sales appeal. Then, when passenger
airbags began to harm children and small adults, the auto industry
joined insurers and other safety groups in promoting both ways of
avoiding the harm (using seat belts and keeping children restrained
in rear seats) and developing standards for advanced, relatively
harmless, airbags. Automakers have also responded to regulatory
hints about the need to protect against side crashes by developing
voluntary standards for side airbags.
So, apart from the intrinsic interest of the long
and twisty story of a piece of technology that will be part of every
American’s life, and might save many of them, the story suggests
that regulatory and market processes are not simple opposites. There
may be other lessons for policy making suggested by this case study.
“Suggested” is the operational word, since a single
case can never establish any generalization.
The story proceeds chronologically, stopping in 2002
even though advanced airbags and side airbags are still evolving,
both technologically and in regulatory terms. After explaining how
motor vehicle safety became a federal concern, it notes the early
appearance of both airbags and safety belts on that regulatory agenda
and tracks the development of proposed rules for their use through
the political, economic, legal and conceptual changes that shaped
them. At the end there are some reflections on the possible implications
of the story.
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This case history is not written with any pretensions
to neutrality or objectivity. But I have tried hard to be aware
of my biases and to give a full and balanced account of the views
of all sides of each contentious issue. I played a very minor role
in the story, as a member of the Board of Directors of the Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety for eighteen years, until 1991, and
as an officer in an automobile insurance company that actively supported
airbag requirements. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety,
a leading proponent of airbags, supported this study. But IIHS has
never tried to guide the positions taken in it.
Here is a partial list of all the debts I contracted
in writing this study. I was introduced to the serious study of
highway safety by William Haddon, Jr. After Bill’s untimely
death, Brian O’Neill succeeded him both as president of the
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and as my mentor. Brian and
his colleagues, Chuck Hurley, Steve Oesch, Allan Williams, Adrian
Lund, Susan Ferguson, and Michele Fields, have patiently led me
through the technical and legal mine fields of the subject. Maria
Kaufmann has been an insightful and skilled editor. Most of my research
exploited the resources of the IIHS library, where Kris Pruzen and
Carolyn Sosnowski were unfailing sources of advice and Ellen Sanders
was a patient helper. Kristi Lowe patiently refined my word processing.
So many participants in the history shared their recollections with
me in sometimes lengthy interviews that I have listed them in a
separate appendix. But I want to especially thank Joan Claybrook,
Raymond Peck, Helen Petrauskas, and Roger Maugh for the trouble
that they took to answer my questions. The reader will note that
I have built on the foundations laid by the earlier studies of Joel
Eastman and John Graham.1 The latter even allowed me
to review his interview notes. If, in spite of all the help I received
in this study, there are errors or gaps, the fault is mine alone.
___________________________________________
1Joel W. Eastman, Styling vs. Safety: The American Automobile
Industry and the Development of Automotive Safety, 1900- 1966 (Lanham:
University Press of America, 1984); John D. Graham, Auto Safety:
Assessing America’s Performance (Dover, MA: Auburn House,
1989).
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