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It's very new.

"The airbag is in this debut season by no means standard. Because many drivers believe he would impede on the track. Others fear aerodynamic deficiencies and malfunctions. In addition, the Italian manufacturer Dainese many teams not supplied as outfitters. And so had the sixth race this winter in addition to Mayer only five further downhill in Val Gardena over the air bag striped, four Austrians and two Canadians." (from the source above)

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To clarify these are airbags designed to protect you in a downhill crash (which are usually very violent for big alpine riders) but avalanche airbags that help you rise to the top of the stream of snow have been pretty standard equipment for the past ~5 years.

This sounds very much like the slow adoption of the HANS Device in NASCAR. The guy who developed said he sold maybe 200 in the first ten years.

That all changed when Dale Earnhardt died of a basilar skull fracture, and then the drivers lined up to get them. It's now standard equipment on all NASCAR vehicles.

http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2012/09/11/u...

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