First Driver Airbag at Mercedes Benz Turns 30

The first series production car equipped with an airbag in the history of Mercedes-Benz rolled off the company assembly lines no less than 30 years ago, with the model in question being an S-Klasse Saloon. According to the NHTSA, since then the airbag has saved more than 28,000 human lives in the US only.

“Mercedes-Benz made the airbag available in series-production cars long before other manufacturers, and has meanwhile equipped millions of vehicles with this protective system. Since October 1992 a driver airbag has been standard equipment in all passenger cars bearing the Mercedes star,” a company statement reads.

However, Mercedes-Benz has several other things to brag about aside from introducing the first airbag in series production cars. The company was also the world pioneer in the field of handling safety systems such as ESP.

With PRE-SAFE, which has been available exclusively in Mercedes models since 2002, the company's approach is to use anticipatory safety measures to avoid accidents completely, mitigate their severity and reduce the loads acting on vehicle occupants.

The company has also worked on the improvement and extension of protective systems: after driver and front passenger airbags, Mercedes-Benz developed sidebags and headbags for protection during lateral collisions. According to the findings of in-house accident researchers, the probability of serious or fatal injury in the event of a lateral collision in a vehicle equipped with headbags is reduced by more than half.

Protective systems in Mercedes-Benz cars also include belt tensioners and multi-stage airbags. The company says the control systems for these onboard safety features now have the processing power of the 'supercomputers' used in space exploration 25 years ago.