The 'smart' air bag case: air bags are intended to save lives, but they may also cause injury. As air bag technology has become more complex, so has air bag litigation.

Trial, February, 2007 by Baron, Lawrence

Today, we live in the so-called smart air bag era. Overall, air bags fire with significantly less force than they did just a few years ago, and air bag systems are designed to detect children in the front seat and drivers sitting too close to the air bag. In such cases, air bags may either not deploy or deploy with minimal force.

Depending on the severity of a crash, air bags may deploy at different levels of force: High-speed crashes require air bags to deploy more aggressively than low-speed crashes do. All these changes were implemented after an outcry over air-bag-related deaths, mostly of children and women, in the 1990s.

In theory, air bag litigation should be assigned to the ranks of cases like those involving breast implants and intrauterine...

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