Friday 1st September 1989

The US federal government passed new car safety legislation, requiring all newly manufactured cars to install an air bag on the driver’s side. While air bags have proven to be life-saving devices in most cases, concern over the safety of the air bags themselves arose during the 1990s. Several instances in which small children were seriously injured or killed by an air bag caused a public clamour for further investigation of the devices, which can explode out of the dashboard at up to 200 miles per hour. Air bags are still installed in all newly manufactured models.