Airbag System

What It Means

Airbag systems are supplemental restraint systems (SRS) that work alongside seat belts to protect occupants during collisions. Modern passenger vehicles typically contain 6 to 10 airbags: frontal (driver and passenger, governed by FMVSS 208), side-impact torso airbags, side-curtain airbags that deploy from the headliner, knee airbags, seat-belt-integrated inflatable belts, and, in some vehicles, rear-seat side airbags and external pedestrian airbags. Frontal airbags have been required in all new passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. since model year 1998 under FMVSS 208, and side-impact airbags meeting the FMVSS 214 oblique side-impact standard have been effectively universal since 2013. Airbag deployments are triggered by a crash-sensor system (typically 3-axis accelerometers plus pressure sensors in door cavities), processed by a Restraint Control Module (RCM), and executed by pyrotechnic inflators that rapidly generate nitrogen or argon gas to fill the bag within about 20 to 30 milliseconds of impact detection. Airbag-related recalls are among the most common and most consequential recalls in NHTSA history. The Takata phased-inflator-rupture recall, ongoing since 2013, has covered more than 67 million inflators across 19 automakers and has been linked to at least 27 U.S. deaths and more than 400 injuries, making it the largest automotive recall campaign in U.S. history. Common airbag defect types include: propellant degradation leading to inflator rupture (Takata), failure to deploy during actual crashes (multiple Ford and GM recalls), unexpected deployment without a crash (several Honda and Volkswagen recalls), deployment with excessive force causing injury, and software errors in the RCM that misinterpret sensor data. On RecallCheck, airbag recalls are tagged with the "Air Bags" component category from the NHTSA Recalls API and are given elevated weight in the recall severity component of the Safety Score.

Airbag System is one of the NHTSA or vehicle-safety concepts that recurs across RecallIndex. The definition above is the technical answer; below is how the concept connects to the NHTSA data that drives every vehicle page on the site.

In the RecallIndex Safety Score, this concept feeds one of the four factor weights — recall severity (40 percent), complaint frequency (30 percent), crash and fire reports (20 percent), or trend direction (10 percent). The methodology page on the site walks through every input in detail.

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