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DEADLY AUTO AIRBAG DEPLOYMENT

Air bags may save lives but they can also cause severe internal injuries and may be hazardous to children under the age of 14 who go unbuckled in their seats. An unbuckled child involved in an auto accident when the passenger side air bag deploys and inflates it may actually end up propelling a small child upward crashing the child's head into the roof of the car!

Critics charge automakers may possibly have known about the potential risk of auto air bag deployment on young children for over 20 years now but seemingly have never really made any grand effort to make air bags safer. Are automakers putting their financial bottom line ahead of passenger safety? Is it less costly to simply settle out of court on a few cases than it is to fix the problem. Some children have even been killed by decapitation due to an air bag incident!

A minor" fender bender" auto accident, which typically would not harm an adult, can end up killing a child or elderly person due to air bag deployment! In some cases claims have been made that the air bag deployed when they bumped into something while going less than 10 miles per hour! When an air bag deploys it does so at a rate of up to 200 miles per hour!

SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCE: HARD COPY TV NEWS 2/27/97

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