Both my dads car and brothers car are part of this recall.

http://www.safercar.gov/ See if your car is being recalled.

My car was affected, but has already been fixed.

Jalopnik had an article about this a few days ago - http://jalopnik.com/the-complete-story-of-takata-airbags-and-the-biggest-re-1780143347

Takata used to use a safer but more expensive propellant (car to guess why they changed?), and have now changed the formula to include a drying agent to help prevent the problem in new airbags. Their issues were also exacerbated by problems they had moving their production facility to Mexico on the cheap.

There seems to be a clear trend there: cost savings trump product safety.

You better be sure about that. Because they make most airbags, and have a limited production capability, they've been allowing them to install new, but still "bad" airbags in new cars under the theory that they won't go bad for about 6 years, and they hope they can recall them again before that 6 years is up. Chances are they're doing the same with the replacements if there's not a legal reason that they aren't allowed to.
Insane, but that's the report I read last week....unfortunately I don't remember where.

TBH the risk isn't that great. In Texas in 2015, a state with a large number of faulty airbags and roughly the same population as Australia, there were 246,335 people injured in motor vehicle crashes but only one Takata airbag death.

TBH, neither of my cars have airbags, they are from the 70's, and I feel like they are both more safe in an accident than newer cars because they are made of metal. ;-)

Take the risk you wish, or that you are forced to take. I was just pointing out that having your airbag replaced doesn't mean it's fixed.

a spokesmen for the group said 'this was the one thing we didn't want to happen'
(in homage to brass eye https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRRw1ERj2Gc)

Anyone know if crash test data exist for older cars? Would love to see a comparison to the newer cars.

Is this US cars only?

Nope, I've seen Toyota recalls in Europe, explicitely for faulty Takata airbags.

That said, I find the idea of a baby-claymore in your dashboard rather charming. Gives you an incentive not to crash. Can we get a study on this? Has this threat saved people from being mowed down by distracted drivers? Probably not, because people seem to lose interest after 30 seconds, but still...

More claymores, I say.

Nope, it's worldwide. I'm Australian, and my recalled car is a Mazda 6 which I think was probably made in Japan (it would make sense to manufacture all the right hand drive versions in the same facility).

I can't recall where i saw it, but a long time ago i saw a comedy skit(maybe) that had a large spike coming from the steering wheel in order for people to drive more carefully.

As much as I'd love to pile more hate on some faceless / heartless corporate entity that doesn't care about anything other than profits, I find it somewhat unreasonable to be TOO hard on Takata here.

Just by sheer Philosophy 101 arithmetic of lives saved vs lives taken, airbags in general are massively beneficial. Take a worst case hypothetical scenario -- I know that my car has Takata airbags, AND I live in a very humid environment, AND my car is pretty old, AND the waiting list on the recall means that I can't replace the airbags for another 2+ years. Even in that scenario, I think I'd *still* opt to keep the thing in and active until it could be replaced. It would be nice to have further information on the 10 fatalities (roughly where, make/model, age) and corresponding information from other recent crashes under similar circumstances where the airbags *did* work properly, but I'd wager that even in that kind of worst-case scenario the good outcomes still handily outweigh the bad outcomes.

It is hard to foresee everything that can go wrong years and years into the future. We put lots of hardware through robotics that open doors / actuate things / etc. every few seconds continuously for months in an effort to predict how they will stand up to normal wear and tear for years, but that's harder to emulate with chemical processes.

So, until/unless there is evidence that they used the Ammonium Nitrate while knowingly and intentionally ignoring the potential long-term risks as the stuff ages in some environmental situations, I would be very hesitant to call for their heads over this. I guess that is the purpose of a "criminal investigation", but I really hope that isn't code for "witch hunt".

http://videosift.com/video/1959-Bel-Air-vs-2009-Malibu-crash-test

Crumple-zones (and other safety engineering) can be the difference between life and death.

And most crash tests (and star ratings) aren't for highway speeds.
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/ratings-info/frontal-crash-tests
so 40 mph and 35 mph. If you go up to 55,65,75 mph the difference in kinetic energy is exponentially higher (K=0.5mv^2)

there might have been a mythbusters episode about this...can't remember the result though.

YAY! My steering wheel on my truck isn't the weirdest looking sawed off shotgun in history!

Sure, but I drive a Bronco with a full roll cage....not a bel air. I would crush that bel air too, and the Malibu. Bronco's are tough enough to do both, they have a thick full tube frame and heavy metal body, not a weakened C-channel or less covered in plastic. Mine has a >300lb industrial steel bumper as well.
My other car is a 73 CJ-5, also with full roll cage and with 4 point seat belts, that is tall enough to drive right over both of those cars or, if not, turn them into convertibles. ;-)

So yeah, I still think I'll do WAY better in a crash than an average new car.

Structural failure isn't the only risk. The point of modern safety features is to reduce the impact of the crash on the occupants. If you crash an army tank into a large tree at high speed, the tank itself is likely to be fine but the occupants probably won't. In your case, whether your car is better or worse than the average modern car in a crash is probably "it depends".

How does your car compare to the Discovery in http://videosift.com/video/Crash-tests-SUV-vs-Minivan-Which-one-does-better ?

Totally true....but in all honesty, my car is so rusted that the entire body is really a crumple zone at this point, but not an engineered crumple zone.
The bronco is much taller/higher than the discovery in that vid, and much tougher, with 500%-1000% more bumper, but it only has lap belts, not even a shoulder strap, so in that situation if I don't drive up over them I'll probably take a steering wheel through the chest.
EDIT:The Jeep is even higher, so more likely to drive over anything, with no bumper, just protruding front tires to bounce off or pop, full 2.5" roll cage, and four point seat belts attached to the cage. It's safer than any normal car made today thanks to the add ons.

BUT, remember, the crumple zones work to decelerate BOTH cars in an accident, not just the car with the crumple zone, so as long as the car I hit has them, I'll be OK....maybe. My CAR will certainly survive better than the newer car, at least. ;-)

I took that into account, that's where the "it depends" came from