But wait! It's even worse. This calculated time is how long it would take for the human to hit the steering wheel. But the idea is to have the human hit an airbag instead. That means that not only does the airbag have to inflate in this time, but it also decreases the distance the person can travel.
Let's say the distance is cut in half—that also cuts the inflation time in half to about 0. Try blowing up a balloon in under a tenth of a second. It's pretty much impossible. Now try doing the same thing for a larger bag in even less time. You can't do that with air.
The only answer is an explosion that produces a gas to fill the airbag. It's even crazier than you think. Let's imagine what has to happen for this collision which is just at 35 mph. All of that has to happen before the human hits the bag. It would take several years of debate before NHTSA added a fifth-percentile female crash dummy to the test. He is deputy director of the Center for Applied Biomechanics at the University of Virginia, which does testing for the government and other institutions.
The adoption of advanced air bags that depower in low-speed crashes, mandatory since , and moving kids out of the front seat and into backseat restraints marked the last big survivability improvements. Seat belts are the first and most important line of defense. According to NHTSA, frontal air bags saved 2, lives in , but seat belts saved 12, lives, more than five times as many.
Keep in mind that 33, highway deaths were recorded in Can air bags get better? Electronic stability control, for instance, is reducing rollovers, which are particularly lethal.
More advanced seat belts and sensors offer even more possibilities. By sensing the weight and position of occupants, and whether they are belted, belts work with air bags first to pretension that is, tighten the shoulder strap and then let it unspool to apply the minimum force needed to restrain passengers without injuring their ribs or thorax, with the air bag arriving to cushion the head. It might be possible, says Prasad, to move to a smarter three-stage air-bag system.
More likely, he says, is that black-box data recorders now in every car combined with newer anticollision warning and braking systems will improve the margin of safety.
And once you start predicting, you could fire an air bag before the crash. But that could take a decade or even two. In the meantime, there are still a lot of old cars out there.
If you are short, consider pedal extenders to keep your face at least 10 in. The leading edge speed of some airbags during deployment may approach speeds of approximately mph.
If the impact is small or at a low speed, your airbags will not deploy. The inflation system is designed to inflate the airbag quickly, at speeds up to mph, and then to deflate quickly so that your vision and movements are not limited.
Proving Liability for Airbag Deployment Failure To successfully sue a car manufacturer for airbags that failed to deploy, you will need to prove: The airbag is defective; You suffered severe injuries, caused or worsened by the failure of the airbag to deploy; and.
You suffered financial, physical, or emotional damages. Airbag sensors were defective — If the impact of a collision should have triggered an airbag to deploy, but it did not, it may be possible that the sensors failed to correctly detect the impact or deploy the airbag. This commonly happens in collisions where one or multiple airbags deploy, but another airbag does not.
Tens of millions of vehicles with Takata air bags are under recall. Long-term exposure to high heat and humidity can cause these air bags to explode when deployed. Such explosions have caused injuries and deaths. Friction burns For an airbag to adequately protect a driver from contact with the steering wheel, it must detect a collision, signal the airbag, and ignite the chemical to explode the bag. This series of events happens in less than a blink of a human eye, approximately.
Low Impact Airbag Injuries They sometimes can cause more harm than good, however, especially when they deploy in lower impact accidents. Airbags cause significant injuries in some instances, and the likelihood of that increases if the occupant is not wearing a seatbelt. Because air bags deploy very rapidly, serious or sometimes fatal injuries can occur if the driver or passenger is too close to — or comes in direct contact with — the air bag when it first begins to deploy.
Side-impact air bags inflate even more quickly since there is less space between the driver or passengers and the striking object, whether the interior of the vehicle, another vehicle, a tree, or a pole.
Sitting as far back from the steering wheel or dashboard as possible and using seat belts help prevent drivers and passengers from being "too close" to a deploying frontal air bag. This is why rear-facing car seats should not be placed in front of an active air bag, and children under 13 should be seated in the back seat. Air bags can only deploy once, so make sure you replace used air bags right away after a crash, only at an authorized repair center, and before you drive the vehicle again.
Takata air bags, installed in tens of millions of U. If your car or truck is included in this list of Takata air bag-affected vehicles , contact your dealer for the appropriate repair. You count on your air bag to protect you and others in your vehicle in the event of a crash. If your vehicle is equipped with a counterfeit air bag, there is cause for concern. Counterfeit air bags have been shown to consistently malfunction in ways that range from non-deployment to the expulsion of metal shrapnel during deployment.
NHTSA has identified certain vehicle makes and models that may have these air bags. We believe this issue affects less than 0. Consumers whose vehicles have been in a crash and who have replaced their air bags by a repair shop that is not part of a new car dealership within the past three years or who have purchased a replacement air bag online should contact the call center established by their auto manufacturer to have their vehicle inspected at their own expense and their air bag replaced if necessary.
The responsibility for replacing a counterfeit air bag will vary depending on the circumstances around the original installation of the part.
If you are concerned and have an air bag that was replaced at a repair shop recommended by your insurance company, we recommend that you contact your insurance company. You may also wish to contact your local Consumer Protection Agency or the appropriate State Office of the Attorney General to determine your rights under the law, and the Better Business Bureau or the Federal Trade Commission to file a complaint.
There are few circumstances under which the risk of sitting in front of an active frontal air bag outweigh the safety benefits.
Authorization will be granted under the following four circumstances:. The approval process for deactivation is more rigorous because, while an ON-OFF switch allows the driver or passenger frontal air bag to be turned on and off in appropriate circumstances, deactivation is not so flexible. Once deactivated, an air bag cannot be easily activated for those drivers or passengers who may need it.
If you are interested in having an air bag ON-OFF switch installed in a vehicle you own or lease check with the leasing company first to see if installing an ON-OFF switch would violate the terms of your lease , you will need to:.
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