Beginning Sept. 1, 1998, all cars and light trucks sold in the U.S. were required to have airbags on both sides of the front seat to protect driver and passenger, as required by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991.
As a result, frontal airbags have been standard equipment in all passenger cars since model year 1998 and in all SUVs, crossovers, pickups and vans since model year 1999.
The concept of airbags has been studied since the 1950s.
Walter Linderer of Germany sought an application for a rudimentary airbag.
In the U.S., industrial engineering technician John Hetrick, inspired by inflatable protective covers on Navy torpedoes, patented a design for a “safety cushion assembly for automotive vehicles” in 1953. He later sent sketches of the device to Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Chrysler, which never responded. However, GM and Ford did undertake airbag research in the 1950s.
Inflatable-safety-cushion technology languished until 1965, when Ralph Nader’s landmark book, “Unsafe at Any Speed,” raised the prospect that seat belts and airbags, when combined, could prevent thousands of deaths in car accidents.
Congress passed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act in 1966, requiring automakers to install seat belts, but not airbags, in every car built. Yet only 25 percent of motorists used the safety belt.
Ford produced an experimental airbag fleet in 1971 and GM tested airbags on 1973 Chevrolets that were available only for government use.
GM engineered and manufactured the first commercial automotive airbag — in 1974 for the Oldsmobile Toronado.
Frontal airbags saved 50,457 lives from 1987 to 2017, according to NHTSA.