Ayn Clouter's Blog

PUNCTURING THE WINDBAGS:

Didn't you know this in your heart all along?

A just-released study by a statistician at the University of Georgia ... indicates that, controlling for other factors, airbags are actually associated with slightly increased probability of death in accidents. ... The reason earlier studies have found that airbags save lives is that they used only a special subset of the available data, said Meyer. ...

"If you look at people who have some types of cancer, you will see that those who get radiation treatment have a better chance of surviving than those who don't. However, radiation is inherently dangerous and could actually cause cancer. If you give everyone radiation treatments, whether they have cancer or not, you will probably find an increased risk of death in the general population.

"Making everyone have airbags and then verifying the effectiveness using only fatal crashes in FARS is like making everyone get radiation and then estimating the lives saved by looking only at people who have cancer. Overall, there will be more deaths if everyone is given radiation, but in the cancer subset, radiation will be effective." ...

"The evidence shows that airbags do more harm than good."

Of course, I disabled the bags in my own small fleet long ago. Now we have the facts, so it's time to start repealing those do-gooders' intrusive laws.