Re: OT-anybody ever get airbagged?

Posted by Matt from CT on March 18, 2005 at 14:36:43 from (66.181.93.142):

In Reply to: OT-anybody ever get airbagged? posted by DCM on March 18, 2005 at 13:08:00:

It's not a function of speed per se...

It's how fast you slow down.

Generally "5mph" is the rule of thumb, but I've seen cases where it was much slower, but the physics of the accident were such they triggered the types of momentum changes that will deploy the airbags. (And yes, most of them today are triggered by a variety of sensors that sense *change*, not just an impact -- I guess in a ultra simplfied model think of a whole bunch of mercury switches that need to get jostled instead of a on/off toggle)

One of the more tragic "mis-fires" I've seen is the daughter of one our Fire Company's Lieutenants -- pulled out of her driveway, didn't see a car coming and got T-boned. No way in heck she could've been doing more than a few miles an hour, the airbag forced glass from the broken side window into her eye. Many operations later, probably will never regain anything more than seeing shadows in that eye. Other one is fine.

The sudden slowdown of her minimal forward speed combined with the lateral acceleration from the impact caused the computer to decide it was a different kind of accident then it really was -- and it was appropriate for the bags to go off.

Eye & facial injuries like that is something that is statistically up.

Over time, these accidental trips will get fewer and fewer. All the GM vehicles, and I'd assume everyone pretty soon, have chips in them that continually record the last 15 seconds or so. So the engineers can take them after an accident, analyze what the forces where acting on the car, and try to program a better algorithm. (And as time goes by, you'll see a lot more court presentations with the "Well, here's what the chips say -- person #1 was travelling at 38.4 mph and applied the brakes 0.78 seconds before the collission while person #2 was traveling at 45.5 mph, took his foot off the accelerator 0.2 seconds before the collission, but had not yet applied the brakes...)

On the balance, they save lives hands down.

I've been involved with the fire department some 18 years. Over that time I first noticed the number of fatal accidents declined (still can remember one of our first "air bag" calls in the early 90s being amazed she lived!). One big thing though was a lot of broken ankles from the way they designed the cars to crumple. Ankle injuries are going down now though as the Engineers figure out ways to crumple the cars without crumpling the ankles.

We've also had to increase the time we find "acceptable" to extricate someone -- used to 10 minutes and you'd have some 'splaining to do what took so long to the Chiefs afterwards. Today 15, 20 minutes with more and better tools and that's not unacceptable performance -- the injuries aren't as severe, but you can't get the friggin' person out!

Just amazes me how, for as much as we may complain about new fangled stuff, how much safer each generation of cars have been becoming over the last decade-and-a-half.

Follow Ups:

• Re: OT-anybody ever get airbagged? RJ-AZ 20:14:12 03/18/05 (1)
  • Re: OT-anybody ever get airbagged? Matt from CT 05:30:28 03/20/05 (0)

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