Inflated airbag

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As the driver of this car was turning left out of a parking lot, she was struck by an approaching SUV. The impact was severe, and vehicle damage was extensive. However, the driver escaped unscathed. She didn’t even seek medical attention. A likely reason was the side airbag that cushioned her head, chest, and abdomen during the collision. These are reducing driver deaths in cars struck on the near (driver) side by an estimated 37 percent. Airbags that Read more . . .

You hear a lot about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, especially if you’re a teen, and while we don’t want to minimize the threat of substance abuse, they are not the top killer of teenagers. Instead the number one cause of death among teens is car crashes. In fact, the fatality rate for teenage drivers is nearly four times higher than for drivers past their teenage years. Read more . . .

Total wreck car

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You’ve heard about crash test dummies, but how about dummy airbags? If you just bought a used car, your life could be at risk and you might not know it. Drivers around the country rely on airbags to protect their life and the lives of their family and friends in an accident. Since 1999, all new passenger cars and light trucks in the United States have been required to have dual front airbags. They’ve become so common that many of us take them for granted. Read more . . .

In the late 1950s a cover of a leading do-it-yourself magazine pictured helicopter-like flying cars and predicted we’d all be driving one by the year 2000. Ten years later a similar magazine suggested that we’d all have cars with turbine engines under the hood that could run on salad oil or kerosene as easily as on gasoline. By the 1980s those supposedly in the know predicted that technology would conquer the problems associated with the electric car. New batteries, they said, would finally take electrics out of the horse-and-buggy era and make them viable. Read more . . .