This year marks almost a decade since I first took the wheel of our family car for a driving lesson.  By far, I consider driving to be my admission ticket to adulthood and independence.  In this day and age, most probably consider driving safe and secure—to the point that it has become as routine as walking the dog.  However, I have never taken it for granted.  Fuelled by harrowing stories of close friends and family who have narrowly escaped death have made me believe that it’s a gamble with death each time you turn the ignition.  In fact, 1.2 million people die from road and traffic injuries every year—making it deadlier than AIDS or cancer.

Certainly, proper education and better roads have reduced the number of fatalities, but it only forms half the equation.  The rest of the responsibility in reducing deaths falls under the car manufacturers themselves.  And we are not simply talking about a road safety program here.  It goes well beyond that.  It goes to the car manufacturers’ main line of business itself: the automobile—and the safety technology behind it.  Ultimately, this completes the road safety formula and one that could ultimately spell a person’s life or death. 

One such safety technology is the Supplemental Restraint System (SRS) or more popularly known as “the airbag”.  This year, it celebrates the twenty-fifth year since it has been fitted onto a road car, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class saloon.  Since then, it has saved over 14,200 lives in the US alone.  According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) study, the airbag will protect one in every three occupants against serious traffic injury and one in every six will owe its life to it.  The US government certainly realizes the merits of the technology and requires it as standard equipment on all passenger vehicles and light-duty trucks.

The development of the technology began in 1967 and required pioneering achievements in various fields.  Although the idea of an air cushion of this kind has been around since the early 50s, engineers were unable to come up with a solution to transform the vision into reality.  However, the Mercedes-Benz engineering team made great progress in coming out with a discriminating sensor system and a gas generator capable of deploying the airbag in just 30 milliseconds.  The team also managed to develop a tear-resistant fabric, improvements to the inflation characteristics and a way to make them all fit in the steering wheel.

Mercedes-Benz did more than 250 vehicle crash tests, 2,500 sled tests and over seven million kilometers of testing before the German company deemed it fit for introduction on the S-Class in December 1980.  In 1991, 28 percent of Mercedes-Benz’s passenger cars were equipped with the safety feature and the following year it became a standard feature.  Mercedes-Benz reckons that this technology has helped the company save more than 2,500 lives in Germany alone.

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