According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, over 107 million (52%) of the over 207 million cars and light trucks on U.S. roads have driver air bags. More than 81 million (39.4%) of these also have passenger air bags. Another one million new vehicles are being sold each month. By law, beginning with model year 1998, all new passenger cars are required to have driver and passenger air bags and safety belts. Light trucks are subject to the same requirement beginning with the 1999 model year.

• Air bags save lives, an estimated 1,263 lives in 1999 alone.
• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that the combination of an air bag in addition to a lap and shoulder belt reduces the risk of serious head injury by 81 percent, compared with 60 percent reduction for belts alone.

• During pre-crash braking, an unrestrained passenger may be thrown against the dashboard area, in immediate proximity to an air bag. Since air bags inflate in less than 1/25th of a second, faster than the blink of an eye, drivers and passengers who are unrestrained or are wearing only the lap portion of their safety belt can receive serious or even fatal injuries from deploying air bags.

• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has identified 101 crashes where the deployment of the passenger air bag resulted in fatal head or neck injuries to a child. In addition, three children have been killed by driver side air bags. Nineteen of these deaths were to infants in rear-facing child safety seats. Most of the other 84 children were determined to be completely unbuckled, "out of position," or wearing only the lap portion of the safety belt (improperly restrained) at the time of the crash.

• Infants should NEVER ride in the front seat of a vehicle with a passenger air bag.
• Children ages 12 and under should always be properly restrained in a child safety seat or safety belt and ride in the back seat. Even if there isn't a passenger air bag in the motor vehicle, the safest place for infants and children is properly secured and buckled up in the back seat.
• Safety belts, both lap and shoulder, should be used with air bags. Safety belt use, currently at 70 percent in the United States, needs to increase.
• According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:
  * From 1975 through 1998, an estimated 112,086 lives were saved by safety belts. In 1998 alone, 11,088 were saved by safety belts.