![\"seatbelt\"](\"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/seatbelt.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\ntypical family car were seatbelts and the brake\u2026 and maybe the horn.\u00a0 Back then seat belts were not always found in the rear seats, especially in older cars when I was a child.\u00a0 Today, though, you\u2019ve got the works.\u00a0 In any new car worth its salt, you\u2019ve got head rests to protect against whiplash, antisubmarining features in the seatbelts, three point-seat belts all round, crumple zones, pyrotechnic pretensioned seatbelts, airbags here, airbags there and airbags everywhere, including by the driver\u2019s knee.\u00a0 And that\u2019s just the passive safety features. In the active department, there\u2019s ABS brakes, dynamic stability control (or whatever the stability package is called \u2013 the name varies from marque to marque), hill start control, traction control, brake assist and on and on.\u00a0 Really safe modern cars also tackle the human factors side of things, with cars that can sense that you\u2019re getting into a pickle and start getting ready for a crash or apply the brakes automatically, or warn you if it detects you\u2019re getting sleepy (a few of the most recent Mercedes <\/a> But there\u2019s a downside to all this: something I\u2019ll have to call Airbag Syndrome.<\/p>\n Airbag Syndrome is what happens when a driver and\/or the passengers neglect a few absolute basics \u2013 sometimes defying the law to do so \u2013 because their car has got a particular safety feature which they believe will keep them safe.\u00a0 You\u2019ve probably seen the sort of thing I mean:<\/p>\n Airbag Syndrome can be defined as a misunderstanding of what safety features, active and passive, are for.\u00a0 They are not supposed to replace the driver\u2019s noggin but to enhance it.\u00a0 Even if we own the safest of safest cars with the highest possible ANCAP ratings, we shouldn\u2019t let this lull us into a false sense of invulnerability.\u00a0 No matter how good a safety system is, we shouldn\u2019t take them for granted or let the car do our thinking for us. After all, as anyone who\u2019s owned a car for any length of time has found out, things do go wrong and malfunction at odd moments.<\/p>\n No way am I knocking safety features in cars.\u00a0 But they should never replace basic common sense or good driving habits.<\/p>\n
\nnumbers do this) or senses things coming in from the side or\u2026\u00a0 They\u2019re thinking up new things all the time.\u00a0 And good on the designers for doing so and trying to make cars safer to drive.<\/p>\n\n