See Part 1 of this post for a background explanation.
See the guide to leg injury measures at the bottom of the post to more easily understand the leg injury results.
Let's look at knee and lower leg injuries first; after all, they are called knee airbags.
Average leg injury measures:
Knee airbag group on left - non-knee airbag group on right.
Left knee displacement: 1.5 mm / 0.7 mm
Right knee displacement: 2.0 mm / 0.9 mm
Left tibia index: 0.44 / 0.39
Left tibia axial force: 2.3 / 2.0
Right tibia index: 0.50 / 0.55
Right tibia axial force: 2.8 / 2.3
Percentage of vehicles with both legs rated Good: 69% / 83%
Based on this sample of vehicles in this particular crash scenario, it seems that knee airbags are of little to no benefit for lower leg protection. Both the knee airbag grouping and the non-knee airbag grouping did very well, with average lower leg injury measures indicating little risk of significant leg injury in a crash of this severity.
Average bodily injury measures:
Knee airbag group - 10.9%
Non-knee airbag group - 11.0%
The overall combined risk of head, neck, chest, and femur injury risk was virtually the same for both the knee airbag and non-knee airbag group.
Based on this sample of vehicles in this specific crash scenario, both the vehicles with knee airbags and vehicles without knee airbags provided a similar level of protection. On average this level of protection was very good, with the risk of serious injury low.
This is by no means a comprehensive study of the effectiveness of knee airbags.
Guide to leg injury measures (source)
Knee displacement: <12 mm Good, 12-14 mm Acceptable, 15-17 mm Marginal, 18+ mm Poor
Tibia index: <0.80 Good, 0.80-0.99 Acceptable, 1.00-1.19 Marginal, 1.20+ Poor
Tibia axial force: <4.0 Good, 4.0-5.9 Acceptable, 6.0-7.9 Marginal, 8.0+ Poor
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