Absolutely not! This is one of the most common misperceptions among consumers. In fact, most airbags vary widely in their design, materials and manufacturing. That means that some airbags protect you better than other airbags. It also means that some airbags are more dangerous than other airbags.
The differences among airbags extend to various characteristics. First, the inflators that generate the gas that fills the airbag can be of different types. Some used solid chemicals such as sodium azide to produce nitrogen gas. Others use stored gas; for example, some use a mixture of helium and argon. Some inflators deploy at the same force level, regardless of the accident severity. Others adjust the deployment forces based on the size and position of the passenger or based on the severity of the crash.
The fabric airbags themselves can also vary widely. Some are nylon, some are polyester. Some have vent holes, others don’t. Some are coated to control the amount of gas exhausted from the bag when the person pushes against it during a crash. Some reach so far toward the passenger that they can slam into their face at hundreds of miles per hour, even if the passenger has not yet moved in response to crash forces. Some are tethered to reduce this risk.
Airbag crash sensors can also vary widely by cars. In the early 1990s, most manufacturers used crash sensors mounted in the front of the car. By the mid 1990s, some of these manufacturers eliminated these front safety sensors, saving millions of dollars in the process. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, some of these manufacturers shifted back to systems that included front airbag crash sensors. Even so, our research and investigation has revealed that similar cars sold under different brand names fail to include such front crash sensors on some models, even though they are present in other models.
Sensing systems that fail to include front crush zone sensors can have many problems. They often have difficulty sensing real-world accidents quickly enough, which can result in late deployments that cause serious personal injuries or even a wrongful death from the airbag deployment. They can also fail to deploy the airbags in crashes involving a tree or utility pole. Some manufacturers made their remaining sensors too sensitive, in an attempt to create a cheap fix for these problems. This has resulted in numerous deployments where airbags were not intended to deploy, including rock impacts to an undercarriage and very minor crashes.
In short, there are significant differences among various airbag designs. There are also significant differences in the ways different car companies engineer their airbags, with some companies using shortcuts to reduce the amount of money they spend to engineer their airbags. Those airbags can be much more dangerous than other airbags.
