New airbag concepts

Of late, there have been innovations that present an opportunity for this traditional safety component to be a part of the future safety brigade

Airbags have been one of the pivotal safety elements present on vehicles ever since vehicle safety mechanisms came into existence. Along with seatbelts, introduced after 1950s, airbags arrived a few years later and in some instances were initially marketed as a substitute of safety belts. Carmakers developed the idea to use airbags as a supplemental restraint system (SRS) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were initially offered as an option in premium vehicles like Cadillacs and later Mercedes-Benz. However, with the advent of rating mechanisms such as NCAP along with other regulatory authorities globally, the following decades have witnessed an instrumental increase in the application of airbags. So much so that airbags have now acquired a mandatory stance in most of the developed nations, from initially being a novelty, while other developing countries are witnessing an increase in penetration of this passive safety mechanism.