What happens when your face slams into an inflated airbag while you’re wearing eyeglasses? Is there risk of injury from this? I can’t recall ever seeing any of those field dummies wearing spectacles.
Anybody know?
Also, eyeglasses aside, what if you’re driving with one hand on top of the steering wheel when the airbag explodes? Will you be impaled by your own arm?
It is possible to be injured by an airbag. My brother for example got his nose broken by one. However, my WAG is that any eyeglass injuries are likely to be limited to bruising.
Couldn’t be any worse than kissing the windshield.
The odds that the bread will fall butter side down are directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.
a) Good question! Don’t know about the eyeglasses, but it can’t be good!
b) When your arm is over the airbag, you won’t even know what happened until long after! Yes, your own hand or arm will basically be a “projectile”, in some respects, although tethered to your body. (Or, so I assume it’s still attached!)
c) As a passenger, my wife insists on putting her feet up - resting on the passenger side airbag. I tell ya, it won’t be pretty!
In an accident in a car with no airbag ('72 Dodge Dart) my right arm flew off the wheel into my face, knocking my glasses off, and giving me a black eye. My seatbelt was one of the weird two-part kind: a lap belt with a removable shoulder strap! I wore it with the shoulder strap on that day, let me tell you- that thing unlatched itself and wrapped itself around the bottom of the steering wheel. (Some safety feature). Now I drive a Volvo- four airbags, steel cage, and for those of you snickering, 260 hp, see you later.
Then we’ll turn our tommy guns
on the screaming ravaged nuns
and the peoples voice will be the only sound.
-P. Sky
Hmm, on the issue of airbag safety: About a year ago, I was driving my father’s car. I had a nickel (maybe it was a quarter, I forget) in my hand that i was playing around with. I inserted it partway into a small slot on the steering wheel (at the divide between the horn part and the rest of the wheel). Stupid, I know. Anyway, the coin fell inside the wheel, and i could hear it rattling around inside there for sometime. My question is, assuming the coin hasn’t fallen out of the inside of the wheel (which is plausable, you definitely don’t hear it inside anymore), what happens if the airbag shoots open? Does the coin fly into the face of the driver with the velocity of a bullet? I told my father about this, so he knows, but he didn’t seem to worried. Anyway, Ill have them look at it when we get the airbag inspected (isn’t this required by law? airbag inspections?), but if anyone has any knowledge of the physics of airbags, it would be appreciated.