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Technical Paper

Airbag Benefits, Airbag Costs

2004-03-08
2004-01-0840
This paper estimates that currently there are 250 million frontal airbags in the United States, which cost their owners $54 billion. In 2003 about 1.7 million of these deployed, 19,000 in fatal crashes in which over 8,000 vehicle occupants were killed sitting in seats protected by airbags that deployed. To date over 40,000 occupants have been killed sitting in seats protected by airbags that deployed. The growth of airbags increases the need to revisit the question of their cost-effectiveness, and also provides the data to do this. The cost-benefit comparison presented here relies on airbag effectiveness estimates and injury cost estimates published since 2000. Even after the deployment of 10 million airbags, their effect on injury risk remains uncertain, and the results presented here are sensitive to the injury-effectiveness values assumed.
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