Air bags work far better when you're belted in. The seat belt slows the occupant down so the air bag has more time to inflate and has less of a blow to cushion.
Seat belts don't necessarily keep you from wanging your head on the steering column or dashboard. Their behavior while resisting the dozens of gees of a crash isn't the same as when you just tug on them normally. They stretch out and dissipate energy but you can still be moving at a good clip when you get to the hard bits up front, unless an air bag gets in the way.
There's a lot of misinformation about air bags out there. For reasons I don't really understand, some people find them to be extremely objectionable, and this results in a great deal of material which greatly exaggerates their dangers and downplays their benefits.
Seat belts don't necessarily keep you from wanging your head on the steering column or dashboard. Their behavior while resisting the dozens of gees of a crash isn't the same as when you just tug on them normally. They stretch out and dissipate energy but you can still be moving at a good clip when you get to the hard bits up front, unless an air bag gets in the way.
There's a lot of misinformation about air bags out there. For reasons I don't really understand, some people find them to be extremely objectionable, and this results in a great deal of material which greatly exaggerates their dangers and downplays their benefits.