Not many people know that the conception of the airbag – a soft shock absorber to land against in a crash – has been around for decades. The very first patent on an inflatable crash-landing device for air planes was submitted during World War 2. During the 80s, the very first commercial airbags were present in automobiles.

Up to now, stats indicate that airbags cut back the risk of dying in a direct frontal crash by as much as 30 percent. These days there are also seat-mounted and door-mounted side airbags. As amazing as this sounds, some automobiles go far further than simply having two air bags, and alternatively have 6 to 8 airbags.

An airbag’s job is to ease the advanced motion of the driver in only a split second. An air bag can achieve this goal in 3 steps:

• The bag is made of a slim, nylon fabric, which is packed into the steering wheel or dashboard and, more recently, the seat or door
• The sensor is the device that instructs the bag to expand. Inflation happens when there’s a smash force equal to running into a brick wall at 10 to 15 miles per hour. A mechanical switch is thrown when there’s a mass movement that closes an electric contact, informing the detectors that a smash has taken place. The detectors obtain data from an accelerometer that’s part of a microprocessor chip
• The airbag’s expansion facility fuses sodium azide (NaN3) with potassium nitrate (KNO3) to develop nitrogen gas. Hot blasts of the gas balloon the air bag

Due to the superfast expansion of an airbag, it’s essential the driver and passenger sit in the seat with a straight back allowing a reasonable distance between their face and the steering wheel / dashboard – this leaves time for the bag to expand while the passenger/driver are being thrust forward by the impact of the accident.