Air bags to get some wind knocked out of them.

Federal regulators have given their blessing to carmakers to install less powerful air bags.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced in March that air bags can be depowered up to 35 percent. Most air bags were made to deploy at about 200 mph, which has resulted in injuries and death to drivers and passengers.

Immediately after NHTSA's regulatory change was announced, the Big Three American automakers said they would begin installing less forceful safety devices in most of their new cars.

"Air bags are good, they save lives," said Lawrence Friedman, a Boca Raton, Florida, attorney. "But there is still a responsibility on the part of the manufacturers to see to it that they are designed properly."

Friedman said that air bags can cause severe injuries to occupants when the bags deploy in slow-speed crashes. He noted one incident in which a driver's air bag deployed after a tire blew out. The driver was startled by the air bag deployment, which caused him to lose control of the car. "The manufacturers have got to get the correct sensors installed," he said.

NHTSA spokesman Timothy Hurd said air bags have saved the lives of 1,731 drivers and 204 passengers since the late 1980s. Congress passed a law in 1991 requiring that air bags be installed in cars and light trucks by 1999, but most automakers have already done this.

Despite the number of lives saved, critics have noted that 63 people--more than half of them children--have been killed by air bags. Hurd said three adult passengers, 22 drivers, and 38 children have been killed. Of the children, 9 were infants who were placed in rear-facing child seats in the front passenger side of the vehicle. The government cautions that children under 12 should sit in the back seat.

The University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute recently conducted a study of air bag injuries, finding that two-thirds of drivers were injured in 540 crashes in which the air bag deployed. Most of the injuries were considered minor. The study did not look at crashes involving passenger-side air bags.

Donald Huelke, one of the lead researchers, said that media attention focused on the deaths involving infants in rear-facing child seats has cast a dark shadow over the effectiveness of air bags in general.

"We have this tremendous restraint system that the government has touted for years and years, and now the bags will be depowered," Huelke said. "These are supplemental restraint systems, not the primary restraint system."

Scottsdale, Arizona, attorney Larry Coben echoed the importance of proper seat belt usage, saying, "The primary problem with depowering the bag is when the occupant is unrestrained. They are out of position when the bag hits them."

Coben said that the blame for the controversy over air bags rests mostly with the carmakers "who didn't do their jobs in the first place. The manufacturers fought against installing air bags in the mid-1970s and the 1980s. When they did install them, they didn't take into account the differences in [driver and passenger] stature and other variables."

Unlike Huelke, Coben said he believes the media have done a good job of raising concerns about potential dangers of air bags.

Huelke, however, said that air bags, when used properly, usually cause only minor injuries. For example, one of his studies that looked at upper extremity injuries found that 38 percent of 540 drivers involved in crashes with air bag deployment received mostly minor cuts and bruises. Infrequently, burns on the wrist or hand from the air bag exhaust gases were found.

Three percent--18 of 540 drivers--received more serious injuries, such as fractures to the forearm, wrist, or hand, which resulted from contact with the air bag.

The people who suffered fractures ranged in age from 17 to 72 and were from 5'2" to 6'2" tall and from 106 pounds to 229 pounds. Fourteen of these 18 drivers were wearing seat belts. "Driver gender and stature do not appear to be related to upper extremity fractures," the study said.

Another part of the study found that facial injuries were suffered by 32 percent of the 540 drivers who were involved in crashes with air bag deployment.

Half those with facial injuries (which include injuries to the eye, cheek, chin, and tip of the nose) were between 4'9" to 5'2" tall, while only 9 percent were between 6'2" and 6'5".

The study concluded that the shorter the driver, the more likely he or she is to be injured in the face, although nearly all the drivers suffered only minor facial injuries.

Injuries specifically to the eye were rare (11 drivers or 2 percent of the sample of 540 drivers), the study showed. Of that 2 percent, almost all (93 percent) were between 5'5" and 5'9" tall. The rest were under 5'5".

Huelke is planning a study on passenger-side air bags and injuries. Based on the data he and other researchers collected from the 540 crashes of cars involving driver air bags, only a small number--about 90 cars --carried a front-seat passenger.

"Are there problems with air bags? Yes, and unfortunately, kids have been killed by them," Huelke said. "The media scared the American public."