“Air bags do not save lives. Air bags provide no better margin of safety than seat belts alone. The argument for air bags is that they passive restrains. However empirical evidence does not show any safety benefit for similar vehicles with over those without.”
Might you have any studies to that effect? I’ve always had difficulty in understanding how airbags can do more than seat belts in restraining people in crashes. As you imply the case for airbags was that people didn’t wear seatbelts...well that bridge has been crossed, every state now has seat belt laws (some pretty silly, like making high school kids sit in boosters, but that’s another issue), and the vast majority of people wear their seat belts. So are airbags even needed anymore?
There was good article about 10-20 years ago, in National Review on dead tree, iirc. People are risk compensators. The “safer” you make something, the more chances people take. Seat belts definitely do save lives, if used. My late wife was short and when she drove she basically had an air rifle aimed at her eyes. Short women are liable to be blinded by airbags in what would otherwise have been a fender bender.