If you haven’t had a crash course (no pun intended) in airbag safety lately, then watching the following video might make you weary of getting behind the wheel of an older car.
Unfortunately, there are still plenty of vehicles on the road world wide that don’t have any airbags, not even for the driver. We’re not talking classic cars either, just old, budget-friendly compact or family cars, most of which were built before this life-saving technology became the norm.
One might be surprised to see cars on the road that don’t have this very important safety measure; after all, airbags have been around since the 1970s, right? However, they were initially the privilege of high-end models and it took some time for the legislation to make them compulsory: in the U.S. for example, automakers were legally obliged to have a driver and a passenger airbag only in the late 1990s.
Of course today is a whole different story, as automakers are fighting among themselves for the title of the safest possible car. From side curtain airbags to knee airbags and even seatbelt airbags, as long as you’re driving a modern vehicle, then you’re very well protected.
As for how a frontal collision in a modern car versus an older one that doesn’t have airbags looks, the footage below really puts things into perspective.