Allocating Blame for Airbag Deployment Injuries: Separating Manufacturers' Blame from Personal Responsibility

Abstract

This study examined how people allocate blame for injuries sustained from the deployment of a driver-side airbag. Participants read one of several versions of a fictitious scenario in which the driver of an automobile is injured by a deploying airbag after a driver swerves into oncoming traffic to avoid striking a child who has run into the road. The scenarios depicted a driver sitting within the airbag's deployment zone and varied in the following ways: the stature of the injured driver (small or large); severity of the injury resulting from the deployment of the airbag (permanent blindness in one eye versus quadriplegia); vehicle speed at impact (15 m.p.h. above versus driving at the posted speed limit); and the safety-worthiness of the vehicle (an elaborate system of safety features versus the absence of these features). When assigning blame for the injuries sustained in the crash, participants appeared sensitive to both the quality of the vehicle's safety system and the driving behavior of the injured party. The manufacturer of the “safe” vehicle was held significantly less responsible than the manufacturer of the vehicle lacking these safety features. However, driver behavior also exerted a significant effect on allocation of blame. Injured drivers depicted as traveling significantly above the speed limit were assigned significantly more blame than their counterparts depicted as driving at the speed limit. This finding suggests that people take other factors into account, including personal responsibility, when assigning blame. Perhaps the most important finding of this research, and one that supports previous research on this topic, is that safety pays. When companies are perceived as making a good faith attempt to look out for the safety of their customers, their customers, in return, may be less likely to hold them responsible when injuries do occur.