Are We In An "Air Bag Arms Race"?

marketing at its finest...the higher the number the better it must be. What next? Adding air bags for the cup holder so after an accident your coke doesnt get all fizzy...

the A8 audi has had 10 airbags

1. 2 x knee airbags
2. 2 x curtin
3. 4 x side airbags
4. 2 x front airbags

one more thing why do we do crash test here in America with dummies not in seatbelts? In europe they put them in seatbelts.

The airbags are used, expecially knee airbags to keep the dummies in the seat with no airbags. It is to bad they dumb down the crash test for the idiots that don't wear seatbelts

when we see airbags in race cars then i will think they are good things

give me better cage protection and seatbelts anyday over airbags

Two of those are optional on the LS460, the LX570 are to be standard... So we both are right.

Will Lexus soon have airbags in the roof in case of roll over?

soon enough someone will sufficate from all the air bags...

Soon enough the whole car will explode into a balloon like cocoon and bounce along like the mars lander did.

after watching kia/hyundai come go from close to the worst safety ratings to four and five stars for all their vehicles by adding airbags then I say "Pile 'em in there!!"

What?

..What was that movie....Judge Dred is that it? the Horrible one with that horrible actor Sylvester Stalone? I don't really watch such movies but I did see some of that one. Anyway, in the movie there is an accident and foam fills the car, traping its occupants. I think we are moving toward something similar in concept. Mainly, there will be enough airbags to really isolate the passenger from not only the car itself but also from other passengers passengers. It isn't so much the acceleration [deceleration] that kills you but instead the period of time that your body undergoes such acceleration. As I recall there is something called "impulse" which really describes the severity of the forces on your body in an accident as it involves the period of time for which the forces are acting.

You are correct on the damage caused by Deceleration, the term Impulse is also correct.

The movie you were reffering to is DEMOLITION MAN and i think we will one day see that sort of Safety Foam application in Vehicles & Aircraft.

Our 99 740 has 10 Airbags, but they weren't standard.

Cant wait for the time when the entire car is like an airbag... think giant Fugu fish .. One impact and it one giant ball of impact resistant foam/bags/water etc. Gives us even more reasons to drive like total morons ...

lots of comment of how many cars have ten bags but ten does seem to be the magic number and the LX570 has the most along with the others. The author wasn't clear enough.

Why is it that some feel compelled to snear at safety? I think all of the recent improvements are tremendous. I'm glad that I'll never again drive a car without anti-skid, ABS, airbags, etc.

I saw a demonstration of an air bag going off and fear that airbags can cause permanent hearing damage when they go off in an accident. The other side of the coin is that I know people whose lives have been saved by an airbag. There should be some form of electronic noise cancellation or silencer built into the airbag system. Electronic noise cancellation can be triggered at the same time as the air bag is deployed and is simple because the shape and amplitude of the sound waves of the explosion that inflates the air bag can be easily determined and is consistent for air bag sytems of the same manufacture.

IamEvilHomer-

Race drivers may not benefit from air bags, but they do have four-point race harnesses, neck braces, crash helmet, steering wheel straps and window nets.

I'd like to see you driving an A8 with such devices.

Lexus is obviously the world leader here, like everywhere else.

The new LEXUS LS50000 will have six-hundred fifty-eight airbags, with ten in each of the five seatbelts, as well as five in the navigation system's screen, three in the gearshift lever, fifty in each seat cushion, one hundred on the two front doors, fifty on the two back doors, and one hundred on the roof.

Really. How do multi-bags work when hit by an 18-wheeler?

Come on. Do you pick the object you are going to hit or is going to hit you?