As president, Johnson fought for auto safety

President Lyndon Johnson is best remembered for the Vietnam War and the War on Poverty, but he also started a “war” for auto safety that eventually put airbags in America’s cars.

Johnson signed the National Traffic and Motor Safety Act in 1966, saying the government must make sure automakers build safer cars.

“We are going to cut down this senseless loss of lives,” Johnson said. “We are going to cut down the heartbreak.”

A few years later, regulators started recommending airbags to save lives. But car companies found little interest in the select models with the safety devices.

By the late 1980s, Detroit decided the time was right for front airbags. Automakers started making them standard equipment, and Congress codified the trend in 1991 with an airbag mandate.

Today’s systems have two-stage airbags with full force for a severe accident and less force for a moderate crash. They also have sensors to detect the weight and position of occupants to improve the system’s performance.

| Mike Casey, The Star