| 1998: |
Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century
enacted by Congress [TEA 21] - for advanced air bags. |
| 1993: |
First of 23 deaths over three years caused by
passenger air bags: Diana Zhang, 6, of Canton, Ohio. |
 |
Car companies required to begin phasing in
passenger air bags in cars and light trucks. |
| 1991: |
President Bush signs a law requiring an air-bag
phase-in starting the '94 model year. Deadlines for passenger air bags: all 1998 model
year cars; all 1999 model year trucks. [ISTEA :: Intermodal Surface Transportation
Efficiency Act] |
| 1990: |
First report of a driver being killed by an air
bag: 64-year-old women suffers fatal chest injuries from air bag. |
| 1989: |
Ford announces driver air bags will be standard
equipment in nine car lines. |
| 1988: |
In a dramatic turnaround from CEO Iacocca's
previous anti-bag position, Chrysler becomes the first U.S. automaker to install driver
air bags as standard equipment in all its domestic-made cars. |
| 1987: |
NHTSA lets automakers use driver air bags to
meet passive-restraint requirements until '94 model year. |
| 1986: |
NHTSA allows automakers to meet
passive-restraint requirements through the 1990 model year with only driver air bags. The
agency cites concerns about the dangers of passenger air bags. |
| 1984: |
Now Chrysler CEO, Iacocca lambastes air bags as
example of "solution being worse than the problem." |
| 1983: |
The Supreme Court rules against the Reagan
administration and directs NHTSA to review the case for air bags. |
| 1981: |
Under the anti-regulatory Reagan
administration, NHTSA announces one-year delay of passive-restraint rule, proposes that it
be rescinded altogether. [Transportation Secy: Elizabeth Dole] |
|
NHTSA cancels passive-restraint standard,
citing uncertainty about public acceptance and use of automatic safety belts. |
| 1979: |
General Accounting Office warns that
out-of-position occupants are in danger from air bags. |
|
General Motors notifies NHTSA it will not offer
optional passenger air bags on 1981 models as planned because of "potential for risk
of injury to unrestrained small children who would otherwise survive an impact without
significant harm." NHTSA chief Joan Claybrook insists "the trade-off in terms of
saving thousands of lives clearly outweighs these extraordinary and infrequent
risks." |
| 1977: |
Carter administration Transportation Secretary
Brock Adams announces that all new cars sold in the USA must have front air bags or
passive safety belts that fasten without any effort by the driver or passenger by the 1984
model year. |
| 1976: |
Transportation Secretary William Coleman says
air bags in all cars would save about 12,000 lives each year. Scraps passive-restraint
requirement when automakers pledge to install some air bags voluntarily. |
| 1975: |
Volvo report says eight of 24 pigs used to
simulate effect of air bags on unrestrained children were killed by the force of the air
bags. All but three pigs were seriously injured. |
| 1974: |
GM starts making some dual air-bag-equipped
Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles and Buicks, hoping to sell 100,000 a year. Drops effort three years
later after selling only 10,000. |
| 1973: |
General Motors manufactures 1,000 Chevrolets
equipped with experimental air bags and provides them to fleet customers for testing. |
|
Infant, unrestrained on passenger seat of one
of the experimental Chevrolets, is killed when a passenger bag deploys in a wreck. GM
considers that the first air-bag fatality. |
|
An Oldsmobile Toronado, first car with a
passenger air bag intended for sale, rolls off assembly line. |
| 1971: |
Ford builds experimental air bag fleet. |
|
NHTSA delays passive-restraint mandate until
1976 after Henry Ford II, Ford President Lee Iacocca lobby President Nixon. |
| 1970: |
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA) orders passive restraints by 1974 model year. |
| 1969: |
Nixon administration proposes passive
restraints in cars to protect unbelted occupants. |
|
General Motors warns federal safety officials
that children too close to an inflating air bag could be "severely injured or
killed." |
| 1966: |
President Johnson signs the National Traffic
and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which requires the government to come up with safety
standards for new vehicles. Previously, auto safety had been largely unregulated. |
