Who Invented Airbags And Which Was The First Car To Use Them?

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), over 50,000 people have been saved by frontal airbags between 1987 and 2017. Today, these airbag systems are much more complex than when they were first invented, with not only frontal coverage, but also side curtain, and even knee airbags. While front airbags have been a requirement for car manufacturers on every new vehicle since 1998, the technology was developed much earlier than you might think.

According to patent records, inventors Walter Linderer and John Hetrick were devising airbag-like prototypes back in the early '50s. Linderer envisioned a compressed air system that was released manually by the driver or through bumper contact, while Hetrick referred to his invention as a "safety cushion assembly for automotive vehicles."

Later, in the mid '60s, engineer Yasuzaburou Kobori used a small explosive device to rapidly inflate an airbag. However, it was Allen Breed in 1968 who patented the only system that could sense impacts, which took the airbag from a rough idea to something that automakers wanted to include in their new models.

The 1973 Oldsmobile Toronado was the first car to include factory-installed airbags, marking an important moment in the history of Oldsmobile. This wasn't this model's first brush with innovation. Oldsmobile's 1966 Toronado broke new ground years before in terms of how luxury coupes were constructed.

If airbags were available by the early '70s, why did it take another two decades for them to catch on? While it seems odd today to be skeptical about them, when they were first introduced, they didn't immediately become a must-have. In fact, automakers initially had to convince drivers that this new safety system was worthwhile. 

One of the big worries about the first airbags was just how much force they used when deploying. In some circumstances, the bag itself caused serious injuries, as the technology couldn't yet adjust deployment force based on crash conditions. Children, in particular, were at greatest risk when these first-generation airbags deployed. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) states that out of 290 passenger deaths caused by frontal airbag inflation between 1990 and 2008, 90% were children and infants.

In the 1970s, many people didn't even use seatbelts. An NHTSA survey found that by 1979, only 11 percent of U.S. drivers used seatbelts regularly. Strangely, there is still one U.S. state that has no law requiring adults to wear seatbelts. Back when airbags were first introduced, it was tough to convince people to embrace this more advanced safety measure, considering many didn't use seatbelts. Initially, Buick and Cadillac models could optionally be fitted with airbags, but over a three-year period, with 4.7 million vehicles sold, fewer than 10,322 of them had airbags.