Eric's Vehicle Safety Page
"Geo airbag decapitates boy, 2; family sues" screams one headline (Automotive News 1/6/97, p. 40). According to the latest Detroit Free Press article (2/3/97) 35 children and 20 adults are judged to have been killed by passenger airbags in vehicles.
Before the government mandated that airbags be in all vehicles, they gave manufacturers the option of installing automatic seat belts instead. You know, the kind that has a motor that pulls the shoulder belt along the roof near the door every time you get in or out. The idea here is to make wearing a seat belt automatic, since you don't control it.
The problem is that the system doesn't automatically connect the lap portion of the belt. And because the shoulder belt operates automatically people sometimes forget to reach over and put on the lap portion of the belt. Last month a nurse told me of the fatal consequences of such a mistake. In a frontal collision in which you are only wearing a shoulder belt, your legs will slide forward without resistance, and the torso will be dragged downwards. This sort of phenomena can happen even if you are wearing your lap belt, if you wear it too high. It's known as submarining and can cause severe injury to the torso.
In one case, the shoulder belt caught across the neck of the driver as the body was yanked forward by the force of the crash. The effect was similar to an old Western-style hanging, with the shoulder belt serving as a noose. The inertia of the body yanked the spinal cord and severed it from the skull, causing death.
As a contract engineer who has spent the past two years working with restraints systems in Advanced Vehicle Technology at Ford Motor Company, I'd like to share the following tips and information to help keep you safe. Some of the myths are somewhat contradictory, you will notice, but they are all out there, even with the tremendous publicity airbag deaths have been receiving.
Disclaimer: This is my own personal web page, done without the knowledge or permission as such of my employer or Ford Motor Company. Only I am responsible for the contents which may not remain perfectly up to date or accurate, or be applicable in all cases. Read your owners manual COMPLETELY for more information specific to the safety systems of your vehicle, and ignore any advice I give that conflicts with your manufacturers' advice. I make no warrant as to your safety as a result of reading this material.
MYTH #1: Airbags kill children by smothering them.
FACT: Airbags are designed to inflate and then deflate in milliseconds (that's thousandths of a second, faster than you can blink). Some surveys have indicated that more than half the population thinks smothering is the cause of airbag deaths but this is TOTALLY INACCURATE. The deaths are caused by the body (particularly the head) of the victim being within the space in which the airbag inflates BEFORE the accident. The head or body is then struck by the full force of the exploding airbag, rather than bouncing into the airbag as it is starting to deflate.
MYTH #2: Airbags are not dangerous devices.
FACT: Airbags are very dangerous (as the fatalities demonstrate) when
improperly handled or used. The airbags are inflated by powerful explosive
charges, said to equal 5 M-80 firecrackers. Even with all possible precautions,
"incidents" occur regularly in the manufacturing facilities where the
powder is made or packaged. Workers have been killed in accidents, plants have
been shut down by city officials and the local fire department due to repeated
explosions, and one poor fellow even ended up in emergency surgery recently with
an airbag trigger (with a full charge of propellant) rammed up his nose by an
explosion at his facility.
That's why airbags need to be deliberately
detonated at the end of the life of the vehicle, by trained technicians in a
procedure not too different from a bomb squad detonation. Airbags can be
dangerous, DO NOT mess with them, the crash sensors or the wiring between them
in your vehicle!
MYTH #3: I can brace myself in an accident.
FACT: Baloney. Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn't brace himself in a
moderate-to-severe impact, and you can't either. In
government
crash tests at a mere 30 MPH, the force of the chest against the seat belt
is typically 40-50 times the force of gravity (60 g is the legal standard).
That means if your torso is 100 lbs., we're talking 4,000-5,000 lbs. of force on
your chest. Ever try to benchpress a couple tons?
In addition, your legs
will slam into the front of the car with a force of about 1,000 to 2,000 lbs.
Each.
More to come!
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