Knee airbags aren’t effective, IIHS says

While most types of airbags provide lifesaving protection in a crash, the IIHS discovered that knee airbags don’t offer much, if any, additional protection. This is despite the fact that knee airbags have become extremely common, so much so that they’re standard equipment on popular cars including the Toyota Corolla and Hyundai Sonata, among others.

The organization gathered data from its internal crash testing as well as that from real-world crashes, and compared injury results between vehicles with and without knee airbags. In real-world crashes, knee airbags barely reduced the likelihood of injuries from 7.9% for cars without them to 7.4% for cars with them. In the IIHS’s controlled testing, it found that in moderate overlap frontal tests, the airbags had no effect. In the small overlap frontal test, the airbags slightly increased the risk for injury around the legs, though they also slightly reduced the risk for head injuries.

These results do prompt the question as to why automakers are still adding this feature. The IIHS suggests they may be helpful in required government testing for occupants that aren’t wearing seatbelts, and IIHS only tests with belted-in dummies. And, we should be clear, the IIHS isn’t suggesting that knee airbags are dangerous or should be avoided. They may simply be unnecessary as currently implemented.

That said, it’s disappointing that knee airbags don’t appear to provide any significant benefits (or at least, to belted occupants, as IIHS suggests). But considering their frequent inclusion as standard equipment, it’s also fortunate that they aren’t dangerous according to this study. Knee airbags shouldn’t be a reason to take a car off your shopping list for right now.