Air bags — North Carolina Permit Test

Air bags on the North Carolina permit test — 4 rules, each with the reason behind it and a question on it while it is fresh.

The rules

An air bag comes out of the dashboard at up to 200 miles per hour, and children riding in the front seat can be seriously injured or killed when it deploys.

An air bag is not a pillow. It arrives faster than a blink, and a child sitting close to it takes the full force.

To do its important job, an air bag comes out of the dashboard at up to 200 miles per hour — faster than the blink of an eye.

North Carolina Driver Handbook, p.44

Children age 12 and under should ride buckled up in a rear seat, and infants in rear-facing safety seats should never ride in the front seat of a vehicle with a passenger-side air bag.

The back seat is the one place a front air bag cannot reach. For a rear-facing infant the front seat is the worst place in the car.

Children age 12 and under should ride buckled up in a rear seat;

North Carolina Driver Handbook, p.45

Air bags are supplemental protection: everyone should buckle up with both lap and shoulder belts on every trip, and the front seats should be moved as far back as practical.

The belt does the main work and the bag helps. Sitting farther back gives the bag room to open before it reaches you.

Everyone should buckle-up with both lap and shoulder belts on every trip. Air bags are supplemental protection devices;

North Carolina Driver Handbook, p.45

The lap belt should be worn under the abdomen and low across the hips, and the shoulder belt over the collarbone, away from the neck, crossing the breastbone.

The hips and the breastbone can take a crash load. The stomach and the neck cannot, so the belt is routed around them.

The lap belt should be worn under the abdomen and low across the hips. The shoulder portion should come over the collarbone away from the neck and cross over the breastbone.

North Carolina Driver Handbook, p.45

On the test

An air bag comes out of the dashboard at up to what speed?

200 miles per hour. An air bag is not a pillow. It arrives faster than a blink, and a child sitting close to it takes the full force. North Carolina Driver Handbook, p.44: “To do its important job, an air bag comes out of the dashboard at up to 200 miles per hour — faster than the blink of an eye.”

How this works

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Where these come from

Every rule here is checked against North Carolina Driver Handbook, published by the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles, and against the state code itself. Last checked 2026-10-03.