While air bags save many lives, they have also gotten a lot of attention for the dangers they can pose. For instance, even in a minor crash a child sitting in the front passenger seat can be seriously injured or killed by a deploying air bag. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommends that kids under 13 sit in the back seat, but many kids still sit in the front. Many automakers now use so-called second-generation air bags that don't explode with quite as much force. Still, as more and more cars on the road have air bags, more and more kids are exposed to these explosive devices. Researchers in Philadelphia used insurance claims from State Farm Insurance Co. to learn more about kids and air bags.

What the researchers wanted to know: Do children in the front seat in head-on crashes do better with second-generation air bags than first-generation air bags?

What they did: The researchers used information from State Farm on crashes between Dec. 1, 1998, and Nov. 30, 2002, that involved at least one child age 15 or younger. Thousands of phone interviews were done with the drivers of the vehicles; if a child had been seriously injured or killed in the crash, a Maryland firm did a full-scale crash investigation. The children they focused on were those sitting in the right front passenger seat, wearing a seatbelt, and exposed to an air bag in a frontal crash.

What they found: Children who were exposed to second-generation air bags had fewer serious injuries than children exposed to first-generation air bags.

What the study means to you: The changes in air bag regulations seem to have worked; newer air bags are safer for kids. But no one has done the research yet to find out whether kids are safer in the rear seat or in front with a second-generation air bag. Until that's worked out, the researchers say, kids should stay in the back‑especially since there are still a lot of cars on the road that were made before the late 1990's changes in air bags.

Caveats: Most of the information on accidents came from interviews with drivers, who could have gotten some of the details wrong (or lied about the kids wearing their seatbelts). But, the researchers point out, there's no reason to think that drivers of cars with second-generation air bags would make different mistakes from drivers with first-generation air bags, so it shouldn't change the results of the study. Also, this study doesn't look at what happens to kids if they aren't wearing seatbelts or if there's a crash and the air bag doesn't go off.

Find out more: Read how to be safe with air bags from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Read the article: Arbogast, K.B., et al. "Injury Risk to Restrained Children Exposed to Deployed First- and Second-Generation Air Bags in Frontal Crashes." Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. April 2005, Vol. 159, pp. 342-346.

Abstract online: http://archpedi.ama-assn.org