Air-bags defended in spite of injuries
Road safety experts have defended air-bags in cars despite new findings that the safety devices can cause injuries.
They pointed to the survival of Princess Diana's bodyguard as proof that air-bags can save lives when used with seat belts. The three who died in the Paris car crash - Diana, her companion Dodi al-Fayed and their driver - did not have seat belts on.
A recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine documented three drivers who suffered respectively blood vessel damage, dislocated joints in both hands and loss of hearing after their air-bags inflated in minor car accidents.
But Institute of Advanced Motorists chairman Dragon Young Tung-shing said statistics showed air-bags saved more lives than they caused injuries.
He said inexperienced and short drivers had a tendency to lean too close to the wheel - a dangerous position when an air-bag was deployed.
'An air-bag injury in most cases is a lot less life-threatening than injuries caused by car crashes,' he said.
A Police Road Safety Unit spokesman said there was no law on the installation of air-bags in vehicles, but most new models had the device.
The Transport Department reported between one to three air-bag-induced injuries each year since 1994. It had no estimate on how many cars had air-bags.
The cases highlighted in the medical journal were reported in Connecticut, New York and Vermont.
The most serious involved an 84-year-old man who had a major blood vessel near his heart damaged by an air-bag after his car struck the garage wall at his home.
The man was not wearing a seat belt, while the other two drivers were.
