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The government is not protecting GM. The government IS GM. That's why it's called "Government Motors". I will never buy a car from this fascist company, they stole over $50 billion dollars from the taxpayers.
That story turned out to be pure speculation. Basically they just took the total number of accidents involving cars from certain years where the air bags didn't deploy. But the air bags only deploy when the car is struck from certain angles so the fact they didn't deploy doesn't mean they were defective. The accident could have been caused by a side impact or a roll over and the front bag wouldn't deploy.
^That and the fact that the airbags will still deploy even if the car is turned off. Modern SR systems fully deactivate when the following 3 are true:
1.) The vehicle speed is approximately zero
2.) The vehicle is in park or neutral (automatics only)
3.) The ignition is off for 10 seconds (at minimum -- some will stay on and able to deploy for several minutes)
If a vehicle is traveling at normal speeds and the ignition is abruptly cut off, the SRS would still be active. The reason for this is because it is not uncommon for the ignition and other circuits to be compromised during an accident. The hacks who wrote this article and their "sources" have zero understanding of these safety systems and, furthermore, are simply looking for a way to trump up the charges.
The real danger in losing the ignition at high speeds is the loss of power steering and power brakes. However, this in and of itself is still manageable as the vehicle can still be steered and/or stopped. It's just a bit more difficult to do.
About 3,400 people die each year in frontal crashes with no airbag deployment in their vehicle, according to federal data analyzed by Automotive News.
The number -- amounting to one-tenth of all traffic fatalities -- underscores the difficulty of discerning between incidents when airbags might have failed due to a defect and those in which a variable such as speed or angle of impact was a factor in the airbags not deploying.
A detailed examination of the government's Fatality Analysis Reporting System identified 120 deaths in front-impact crashes with no airbag deployment in Chevrolet Cobalts and Saturn Ions covered by General Motors' ignition recall. Forty-one people died in rollovers, and six crashes involved a fire; both are conditions in which an accident could be severe enough to kill without triggering the airbags.
For the 73 other deaths, the database gives few clues to the factors at play. A 2009 study of similar crashes in the database by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the University of Maryland concluded that more than half were crashes in which the researchers would not have expected the airbags to deploy.
Perry Zucker, an engineer who frequently testifies about airbags in court cases, said the lack of deployment in a crash doesn't necessarily indicate a defect.
For example, if a vehicle is traveling at close to the minimum speed threshold for deployment "and it's not a direct frontal collision, it's borderline," Zucker said. But in high-speed crashes in which a vehicle hits an obstacle head-on, he said, "it absolutely should have deployed."
The analysis by Automotive News identified significantly fewer deaths than a recent study commissioned by the Center for Auto Safety. That study found 303 deaths in the recalled Ions and Cobalts during the same period, 2003 through 2012, but it included side-impact as well as frontal crashes.
For 2012, the Center for Auto Safety study cited 45 deaths that it said could potentially be linked to the recalled ignition switches; Automotive News found 14.
GM says it knows of 12 deaths in frontal crashes with no airbag deployment in the recalled cars, all from 2005 through 2009.
The Automotive News analysis also found that many of the deaths in crashes without airbag deployment were pedestrians, cyclists or occupants of another vehicle.
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