Thanks for staying around to follow up on this mess, and your kindness in helping the young lady and her parents, you not only did the right thing but you are a stand-up guy.
Airbags failed to deploy! How common?
- Thread starter edyvw
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Well, I kind of hope someone would if I am in an accident. We have to care for each others.
The Ford I mentioned was 2.2 Ohm (OTC Tool 501-110). The Ford service data is very specific on this.
I don't know about the others. They are examples from eBay, where it's easy to find airbag bypass stuff.
But, that is to fool individual sensors. That is what confuses me. Even if let's say one sensor was bypassed, what about the other? This vehicle had a side curtain. It also has a side airbag in the seat. None were deployed.
A 1.st Gen Touareg could be over 20 years old. Airbags used to have a 15-year expiration date. VW and MB used to send reminders in the mail when the time for airbag replacement was near. My late '90s BMW called for airbag replacement but I bought a new 3er in 2013. Sometimes they did extend the expiration date for another 5 years. For years, airbags have not have an expiration date. Good luck!
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The airbags deployed in Touareg.
The most dangerous safety item in a car is the airbag. And sometimes they don't work when needed many cases of that just do the search.
Many people have been killed or injured by the air bag working correctly. Then there is the bad design of the inflators that have caused many injury's and deaths as well. Nothing more exciting than having a tin can with no over pressure relief system ready to go off in your face.
Many people have been killed or injured by the air bag working correctly. Then there is the bad design of the inflators that have caused many injury's and deaths as well. Nothing more exciting than having a tin can with no over pressure relief system ready to go off in your face.
You're conflating resistors used to bypass absent or deployed airbags vs. sensors which play a role in commanding deployment. This rabbit hole of speculating that the system somehow failed and therefore a shady repair or masking of a non-repair is a bit bonkers. Sometimes systems just work the way they're designed to, even if it doesn't appear to make sense based on incomplete data.
It can be fun to speculate, I get it. However, the answer to the person actually driving the car is this: if you're hurt and you think the airbag system didn't perform the way it should have, hire a personal injury lawyer. Keep the car in the meantime. Let the lawyer hire the appropriate expert(s) to analyze the data. Listen to the lawyer's advice when they tell you who (if anyone) is liable.
Lucky!
This is forum. There is a lot of speculation about all kind of stuff.
If it was my car, yeah I would expect that when 5,300lbs slams into vehicle, moves floor 4 inches inside, cramps rear seat, that airbags would deploy. At least I am expecting that every day when I put my 4yrs daughter into vehicle.
IMO, if that is how it is designed, next time Altima is Uber option, I will just take a pass.
Lol. Right.
Okay, okay, I was horseback riding while reading and replying.
"NHTSA estimates that during 1990-2008, more than 290 deaths were caused by frontal airbag inflation in low-speed crashes (National Center for Statistics and Analysis, 2017). Nearly 90 percent of the deaths occurred in vehicles manufactured before 1998, and more than 80 percent of people killed were unbelted or improperly restrained. Most of the deaths were passengers, and more than 90 percent of those were children and infants, most of whom were unbelted or in rear-facing child safety seats that placed their heads close to the deploying airbag. Short and elderly drivers, who tend to sit close to the steering wheel, also were vulnerable to inflation injuries from frontal airbags."
Versus lives saved:
From the same article: "NHTSA estimates that as of 2017, 50,457 lives have been saved by frontal airbags"
So, at least in my opinion, seems like frontal airbags are helpful. Note that most of the fatalities occurred in vehicles manufactured before 1998 and the fatalities were "un-belted or improperly restrained".
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Perp was driving an Altima you say and fled the scene, humm... 1/3 of the Altima's in my town have no plate or expired/bogus paper temp tags.
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Looks like she was concussed. She should have been taken to a hospital immediately.
That is a good point. Fooling around with, let’s say front bumper sensors, because the car was in a small front end collision and the flipper wanted a quick and cheap job, should not affect other airbags, at least one would think so.
But then again, manufacturers use strange logic sometimes, like Toyota disabling TC when a check engine light is illuminated.
In any case, based on your description of the accident and the damage caused, I also believe the airbags should’ve deployed.
That is very strange and it baffles me why so many people are so quick to excuse it. Basically saying that these systems are so complex and sophisticated that it must’ve been the best course of action.
This reminds me of that incident with a self driving vehicle that killed a homeless women. At first many people pretty much gave a full excuse to the company because the system did what must’ve been the best, why? Computers and AI don’t make mistakes.
Blind trust in the technology by those that know little about it.
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Man, I had to go get cops at original site. We are lik 250 cops short constantly. Sometimes only one car shows up at accident site that might be fairly large.
She asked me did girl run red light (this was not intersection) at which point I started to think that she might had pretty good hit. She also claimed she is nurse for 17yrs and knows all signs etc. She was giving some conflicting information that seemed like she was in shock and sometimes lime she is trying to get out of situation.
Unless someone tempered with system in general, or car was in wreck where all bags deployed, there is IMO no valid excuse. Car looked in really good condition with no visible signs that it was fixed before. Rear doors were obliterated and front doors were stuck. She had to get out through passenger side (I forgot that small detail). Which means impact was so strong to move B pillar and yet, no seat airbag and curtain.
Before making snide comments about your perceptions about what other people do or do not know, I would suggest the following:
1) Learn about how an accelerometer works. We're looking for X/Y axis (lateral and longitudinal) here.
2) Visualize a vehicle impaled by a vertical pole through its centre of gravity (somewhere in the neighbourhood of the centre console, between the hips of the seated front passengers for a passenger car). In your mind, spin that car around the pole - really, really violently even.
3) Reflect on what you learned about the accelerometer, and ask yourself what lateral acceleration would be registered.
4) Ask yourself: "Self, if I'm a system that decides when to deploy an airbag, and that decision is informed primarily by lateral acceleration, what decision would I make?"
5) If your answer is anything but "Nothing", revert to step 1.
