Airbags In Your Checked Airline Luggage...No, It's Not Okay.

As anyone who's blown an airbag knows, replacing them is expensive. Apparently more so in Europe, because, according to the TSA Blog from the folks at the Transportation Security Administration, a  lot of Europeans are flying over here, buying the new bag, putting it in their checked luggage and flying home.

Trouble is that airbag actuators are on the list of hazardous materials prohibited from transport aboard passenger aircraft.

How come? Well, the same reason that Honda has recalled 800,000 of their cars and that now-retired Car and Driver Editor-at-Large Patrick Bedard pointed out that the airbag is the first safety device to carry a warning label that you could die using it properly.

Namely...it's an explosive that blows the bag (similar to a solid rocket booster, the TSA Blog tells us). 

Not safe in the cargo hold of an airliner...any sensible person can see that. But inches away from your face and chest? There's another agency of the government that has made that mandatory for the past 18 years.

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Patrick Bedard Retires from Car and Driver

Patrick Bedard just announced (in print, in the August issue of Car and Driver) that he's retiring. August is his last column.

Damn.

In 41 years at C/D, Bedard could be counted on to tell it straight...even (make that especially) the stuff you didn't want to hear. Like how the automotive air bag is the first "safety device" in history to have a warning label saying that properly used, the device can cause death.

He called BS on a number of things that needed it...shortened yellow light times that started showing up when red light cameras did...incessant and insane attempts at regulation...I'd need a while to fill out the list. Simply put, if it deserved calling out, Bedard did it.

And he knew of what he spoke...not because he was a journalist (see David E. Davis' August column for the best line about journalism in a while), but because he was an engineer. He not only knew about cars...he knew how to (and not to) design and build them.

After 41 years, I can't begrudge Bedard his retirement. But I'll miss him...and coming at a time when C/D appears to be heading to new heights, I'll always wonder how much better it would be had he stuck around.

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