While all new vehicles sold today must have frontal airbags, many also have rollover airbags designed to protect you during rollover accidents. Unfortunately, these airbags don’t always perform properly.

The most frequent criticism of rollover airbags is their failure to deploy. This is often happens when an airbag system doesn’t have a rollover sensor.

Failure to equip a vehicle with a rollover airbag can itself be a defect. This is particularly true for vehicles with a higher risk of rolling over, such as sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and vans.

Unfortunately, some people are told their vehicles have side curtain airbags or see the “airbag” logo on the interior trim, without realizing not all of those curtain airbags will deploy in a rollover accident.

Keep in mind, salespeople at dealerships may tell customers side impact airbags will deploy in rollover crashes, even when it is not true. That kind of statement can cause the salespeople and the dealer to be held responsible for misrepresentation or fraud when the airbags don’t deploy in a rollover accident. This remains true even if the car company is at fault for failing to install a rollover airbag.

In addition to crash safety sensors, other defects include rollover airbags that “catch” on a piece of plastic trim, causing them to fail to deploy completely or properly. Some rollover airbags also include “pockets” that are not well-pressurized, allowing you to suffer severe head injuries in those locations.

In some cases, rollover airbags failed to deploy because internal components came apart during the rollover, causing the inflation gas to escape rather than inflate the airbag. This can result in you being partially or completely ejected, or being injured from hitting the inside of your car.

While all new vehicles must have frontal airbags that deploy from the steering wheel and dash to protect you in a frontal crash, many also have side airbags (sometimes abbreviated as SAB or SIAB) to shield you during side impact collisions.

Crash sensors for side airbags are usually installed inside the bottom of the “B-pillar,” the post behind the front door that helps hold up the roof. In some vehicles, these crash sensors are inside the front door or near the back seat area.

Your car, truck, van or SUV usually has at least one crash sensor on each side of the vehicle. During a side impact crash, the side airbag sensor should detect the sideways (lateral) deceleration and send an electrical signal to the airbags to begin inflating.

Side airbags are most commonly installed inside your seat, attached to the upper part of the seat frame nearest the door. In a few vehicles, the side airbags are installed inside your door, beneath the plastic trim cover. These side airbags are designed to provide a protective cushion between you and the side of your car.

3 Types of Side Airbags

• “Torso” airbag – Rectangular in shape, it protects only the torso or upper body and is often less than 18 inches tall when fully inflated. These airbags usually provide very little protection to your head and neck.
• “Head and torso” airbag – Taller than a regular torso bag, this type of airbag protects you better in a vehicle accident by protecting your head, neck and chest from the side of your car and the vehicle that hit you. This is particularly true when you are hit in the side of your vehicle by a taller vehicle, such as a pickup truck, van or SUV.
• “Curtain” airbag – A curtain airbag deploys downward from the edge of the roof and is intended to cover most of the window so your head and neck are protected, even when you would otherwise move outside the window during the accident.

For maximum protection, curtain airbags are sometimes combined with torso airbags that deploy from the seat or door trim to protect your chest. In many cases, such curtain airbags extend from the front seat toward the back, and can thus also protect back seat passengers.

In prior years, other types of side airbags were sometimes used, but on a much smaller scale. For example, a few cars used a tubular protection system consisting of an airbag shaped like a tube that ran from the front to the back of the door, extending across the window.

These systems need a separate torso airbag to adequately protect your chest. Often, there were significant disadvantages associated with such side airbags that resulted in limited use.