Even in the Early Days of Passenger Airbags, There Were Huge Safety Differences

https://www.autosafety.org/airbag-study-shows-huge-variation-safety-records-0/ 

This article, dated July 3, 1997, states that as of that time, there had been 43 fatalities from "horizontally-deploying" passenger airbags, and none from "vertically-deploying" designs. 

Horizontally mounted passenger airbags deploy directly toward occupants, while vertically deploying airbags deploy vertically along windshields before curling back toward occupants. Horizontally mounted passenger airbags are usually "mid-mounted", facing directly toward the occupant, but can be mounted at the top of the dashboard. Vertically deploying airbags are always mounted at the top of the dashboard, a "top-mounted" design.

While, tragically, many more children would die from inflating airbags - and there were a few fatalities from vertically deploying airbags - the numbers killed by horizontally deploying airbags was still many times greater.  

Here's a C-SPAN video from the same date where the article is gone over, worth a watch if you're into this sort of thing:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?87506-1/air-bag-safety#!