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Avoid airbag injuries, keep kids in the back
11 December 2006
From New Scientist Print Edition
Paul Marks

Here's another reason not to let your kids sit in the front seat of the car: if the passenger airbag goes off they could get tinnitus and breathing problems.

Airbags have been hugely successful in preventing deaths and injuries in car crashes, but they are designed for someone of adult height and weight. If children sit in the front seat the airbag must be switched off. But many parents remain unaware of this risk and place children behind airbags nonetheless.

Now a team led by Manoj Mittal, of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has pinpointed the risks kids face from both the 170-decibel bang as the bag inflates and the hot explosive particulates that puff into the car as the bag deflates after the crash. Tinnitus is well known in adults who have been saved by an airbag. But Mittal's study is the first to quantify the risk to kids in the front seat. In 4800 car crashes in the US, involving 7400 children, he found that children sitting in the front of a car were 14 times more likely to suffer tinnitus when the airbag inflated than a child seated in the back. "Parents and healthcare workers should be aware of this potential for both tinnitus and respiratory distress," says Mittal. His report will appear in the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention.

Manufacturers need to work out how to deploy airbags fast enough to protect passengers without the huge pressure wave that affects hearing, says Angela King at London's Royal National Institute for the Deaf.

From issue 2581 of New Scientist magazine, 11 December 2006, page 21

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