And they’re HOT. They’re filled from what is basically a blank cartridge.
I tend to think of it more like a miniature land mine. So far as I understand you’ve got an igniter that sets off whats basically an explosive charge packed against a flat plate/wide flat dish. That explosive both propels the air bag and provides the air its filled with.
As a bonus the newly inflated airbag is covered with a dust that can make you pretty sick!
The redness might have been a burn. When the airbag deflates it quickly vents the gas out of holes around 4 and 8 o’clock. Burned both my wrists that way.
They deflate very quickly. Not at all like those 80s comedy scenes where someone is helplessly pinned behind an inflated garbage bag.
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How about a compromise: ban anybody from operating a vehicle over 300kg unless they have a legitimate medical or professional need to do so.
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Or make the accelerator in all cars pedal powered. You want to go faster, you have to pedal faster (with coaster brakes 
). All pedals calibrated. Heavier cars, harder to pedal. Exceptions for people with both temporary and permanent disabilities and long haul truckers.
Long commutes would suck, but public transit usage would go up. Cross country trips - well, there wouldn’t be so many of them by car. Planes are 10x safer for mile traveled anyways.
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I know I’m very late to the party here, but when I came across this idea years back it was presented with a slight but crucial difference, which makes its meaning much clearer. It wasn’t about making driving safer, it was about making the roads safer.
It was a thought experiment which depended on risk homeostasis. Drivers will tend to drive at a risk level they’re comfortable with: if the seat belt is replaced with a spike, the motorist would tend to drive at a lower speed, thus making the roads safer for other users. It wouldn’t make drivers any safer: the hypothetical spherical driver in a vacuum would adjust their risk until they thought they were about as safe as they would be with a seat belt, so the theoretical mortality rate would be comparable.* The savings in road safety would accrue to the vulnerable road users, because of the slower speeds of the motorists. On the one hand, I doubt that anyone has seriously proposed this (though I think some road design is designed to make drivers feel less safe); on the other, it seems likely that designing safer cars will encourage faster driving, and I don’t think the effects on other road users is sufficiently considered.
(Anecdote: when I used to commute by car, I’d sometimes finish work in the small hours. Occasionally I’d drive home illegally without a seat belt, just to see what it was like: I always felt incredibly unsafe, and approached every junction as if something was about to jump out at me. I suspect this feeling wouldn’t have lasted, though.)
* ETA I think this isn’t accurate, strictly speaking, for a couple of reasons, but I’m [supposed to be] at work right now.
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Your idea would be great for stopping road racing. Around here drunk driving and road racing is the greatest cause of death or serious injury (followed by snowmobiles and motorcycles) for those under 25. On one hand I’m okay with the darwinism of it, but the collateral damage is depressing.
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Not when you factor in the CO2 emissions…
Since learning that the risk of an accident is greatest within 200m of home, I kill two birds with one stone by allowing myself to be lazy with the seatbelt when I’m heading somewhere in my immediate neighbourhood. I don’t feel as nervous as I did at first a few years ago, but there’s still a big exclamation point in my brain like standing at the edge of a steep drop.
That’s similar to my strategy. When I learned that the risk of a traffic accident was greatest near home, I moved house.
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