survivorship bias. Yes, airbags can have faults that can cause injury. But having them is still safer than not having them. Just because you survived in a car without airbags and some other individual (even many) got injured or killed by an airbag is not evidence that people in general are safer without airbags. You need to assess risk/benefit based on a statistically valid sample size.
That's not to say we shouldn't work on safer airbags, especially for children, or hold manufacturers accountable for faults/failures; of course we should. But saying cars are somehow safer without airbags flies in the face of the available evidence.
[edit] I realize you didn't explicitly say that airbags are not safe ('good idea or not is debatable', 'may or may not'), but you strongly imply that with 'Airbags are a false sense of security'.
"To get the rule, which was opposed by the auto industry because it would add cost to vehicles, Dole promised it would be rescinded if states that accounted for two-thirds of the population passed laws requiring seat belt use."
First time I had ever heard of the last part of that quote. A quick check shows 30 states have primary seatbelt laws. As these include all the big states (NY, CA, TX, FL,...) I would have to think we are at 2/3 of the population.
The claim as phrased is somewhat suspicious, since it's a regulatory rule and the industry had no firm ability to prevent the department from issuing the regulation (they could lobby against it, or try to get allies in Congress to exercise a legislative veto.) Such a promise may have been a political effort to soften the blow, but I don't see any argument that, even if she was morally obligated to follow through on the promise while she was Secretary, it would be even morally binding on a later Secretary, especially in a different administration. And, legally, if the condition isn't in the regulation or somewhere else legally binding, a politicians promise of repeal is meaningless.
The statistics are pretty easily google-able so I'll only bother linking one article here: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5410761/ns/us_news/t/around-saved-...
That's not to say we shouldn't work on safer airbags, especially for children, or hold manufacturers accountable for faults/failures; of course we should. But saying cars are somehow safer without airbags flies in the face of the available evidence.
[edit] I realize you didn't explicitly say that airbags are not safe ('good idea or not is debatable', 'may or may not'), but you strongly imply that with 'Airbags are a false sense of security'.