Air bags are installed in vehicles to keep you safe in the event of a crash. However, they are not without their own dangers. It’s kind of like preparing to go skydiving by strapping on a parachute filled with poisonous snakes. Okay, so it’s not like that at all, but you get the idea. Wait, you don’t get the idea? Allow us to elaborate.

As long as you make sure that you are not unreasonably close to the air bag during travel, you should be fine. As the driver, if you can safely maintain a distance of at least 10 inches from the steering wheel, you will likely not be injured by the air bag if it becomes deployed. Any closer than that, and you may suffer injury. If your head or chest is 0 inches from the steering wheel, this probably means that you have fallen asleep, and you should not have gotten behind the wheel in the first place.

Some vehicles also come equipped with side-impact air bags. If you are struck from the side, these can be lifesavers. However, they can also cause injuries similar to those caused by the air bags located in front of each seat, especially when deployed in the vicinity of young children. Basically, if you’ve got a kid in your car, and he’s small and fragile enough to be injured by an air bag, he really should be in a child restraint system. Or he should be left at home wearing elbow and knee guards and be confined to a padded room.