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This study, which is an extension of an earlier study, examined an additional 64 frontal crashes of airbag-equipped vehicles in the 1997-98 National Automotive Sampling System Crashworthiness Data System (NASS/CDS) in which the driver died. The principal cause of death in each case was determined based on an examination of the publicly available case materials, which primarily consisted of the crash narrative, the injury/source summary, and photographs of the crashed vehicle. Results were consistent with the earlier analyses of the 1990-96 NASS/CDS files. In the combined data set (1990-98), gross deformation of the occupant compartment was the leading cause (42 percent) of driver deaths in these 116 frontal crashes. The force of the deploying airbag (16 percent) and ejection from the vehicle (13 percent) also accounted for significant portions of the driver deaths in these frontal crashes. There continues to be little or no evidence that airbags deploy with too little energy.

Excessive movement of steering columns in crashes can significantly degrade the performance of restraints, especially airbags. Although steering column movement does not appear to be a major problem in full-width rigid barrier crashes, it can be an issue in other frontal crash types. Results from 106 frontal offset crash tests at 64 km/h (40 mi/h) were used to characterize different patterns of steering column intrusion for different vehicle types. Large movements of the steering column often were associated with the dummy’s head striking the steering wheel through the airbag. Some of the tested models were redesigned over the course of this testing, and comparisons with older designs showed that improving the structural integrity of the occupant compartment could lead to less longitudinal movement of the steering column, but this was not necessarily the case for vertical column movements for some models in the data set.