Has anyone here been in a car accident

Factual Questions
21

What about making cars (trucks in your case) from 'black box ’ material. I am quite happy that new cars are built with crumple zones which lengthen the time of impact and so reduce the effect of crashes (reducing impulse). True it costs more to fix it, but I would rather pay to have my car fixed than pay hospital bills.

Well, if you are * in the medical field * then you must be an expert on everything, and beyond reproach. Well, perhaps some reproach.

Presumably your initial statement about people dying in cars should refer to those not wearing seatbelts, because otherwise you would be contradicting yourself later. I only mention this because I tend to think that sloppy presentation of ideas suggests sloppy formation of those ideas.

You suggest that Android209 is stupid because * There is NO proof that any airbag has saved any lives*, and yet you are happy that wearing a seatbelt will save your life.

My understanding of airbag deployment, and I’m sure you will call me an idiot if I am wrong, is that the bag should be fully deployed before the seatbelted body reaches it. I am aware of the importance of the word should in that sentence, but this does not appear to be a discussion about optimisation of airbag deployment, but of the right of an airbag or any other safety device to exist at all.

The European experience tends to be more favourable. Most people wear seatbelts, and accept that lives are saved through the combination of all safety devices in the cars they drive - crumple zones, seatbelts (with pre-tensioners to reduce forward movement) and airbags. Yes, there are cases where airbags go wrong. Nothing works perfectly all the time. You could argue that there might be times when you would be safer not wearing a seatbelt - the old ‘falling into the river’ routine. Would you want to ban seatbelts?
Your conclusion seems to be - seatbelts are all that anyone needs, and any other safety device is at best useless and in some cases counter-productive - an airbag will KILL you
Given that we are not yet in the Pit, you don’t actually need to address everyone as idiot or moron.
Russell

22

I’ve been in two rollover accidents. I was wearing a lap belt each time, and walked away without a scratch.

23

Man. So much misinformation. Where to begin…

As has been stated, the vinyl covers are pushed out of the way and normally teathered in some way so that is is very unlikely that they would ever contact your body.

True. Airbags have been found to be the cause of a small number of deaths. Almost all of these have been due to neck injuries because the airbag was not positioned properly for extremely short people or because the airbag struck car seats with babies. Most unfortunate. Also something that the automotive safety industry are working diligently to resolve. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to say whether the majority of these airbag related deaths might not have occured regardless, had the airbag not deployed.

That’s a bit like saying that it has never been proved that parachutes save any lives.

Where do you get this stuff? I know several people, personally, who have had their airbags deploy while they were driving unbelted. They all feel the airbags saved their lives. I had a friend who died when his face smashed into the steering wheel. He was wearing his seat belt. I’m pretty sure if he’d had an airbag he’d be alive today. Similarly, I smashed my own face into the steering wheel in a major crash. Again, I was wearing my seat belt. I didn’t die, but I spent several days in the hospital with a serious concussion. Statistically, airbags save lives… Statistically, seat belts plus airbags save even more lives.

Ummm… The lobbyists for airbags are insurance companies. Go figure, they don’t like to pay off on death benefits, so they lobby for things that save lives… Duh!!!

Speaking as someone that works with the automotive manufacturers and airbag manufacturers I can assure you that airbags are not a lucrative part of the business. Most people are thrilled to spend extra money for great stereo systems, climate controls, and GPS gizmos. Few consumers are willing to pay extra for airbags that they probably will never use. The airbag business is a break even one, at best.

I think this is a highly dubious claim. The airbags are designed to deploy and deflate in less than a couple of seconds. Unless your windshield is just layin’ there, it should provide enough back pressure to insure the effectiveness of the airbag. This is not to say that the windshield might not come disloged as a result of the accident or even the airbag deployment.

The most dangerous concerns for airbag deployment are neck injuries, particularly for short people, and minor friction burns.

24

Major Feelgud, we do not insult people in General Questions. Insult ideas if you wish, but not people. Clear?

NYC IRL III
is on April 15th. Do you have what it takes?

25

I have to say, that’s the first time i’ve been called stupid here. You may have developed the opinion that on a particular subject i’m underinformed or naive (I don’t think either is the case here), but stupid is a little strong and i’d like to hear further comments from your good self, Major Feelgud, before I respond in a way that will leave Manny with no choice but to immediately move to the pit.

26

Here is my two cents.

I was in an accident last September. I was traveling on an overpass going through the traffic light that was green and had been green was showing no signs of changing. I was proceeding through at the speed limit (around 35). I was passing a semi with a trailer that was on my right. As I passed this semi and got into the intersection, I reallized that there was a Crown Victoria crossing in front of me. I slammed on my brakes (anti-lock) and braced for impact. With a car as long as the Crown Victoria and it being completely in front of me and almost no room to react, I knew there was nothing to do but slow as much as possible and prepare for impact.

I hit the car in the front fender on the driver’s side. The impact spun the car around about 90 degrees. The impact caused his air bags to deploy as well as mine.

I was wearing my seat belt as was he. My right hand came off the stearing wheel and hit the windshield. I shattered the windshield, but only cut my hand. The airbag deployed and did its thing. I got out of my truck (Ford Ranger) and went to see if he was alright and then called 911.

Did the airbag save my life? I have no idea. I do believe that I would have potentially sustained a greater injury from the crash without it. I had a big bruise with a lot of soreness from the seat belt (you could see where it had been across my chest and waist.)

Other than soreness and a few small cuts to my hand, I sustained no real injuries. I think airbags are generally a good thing.

I think any safety device is a good thing. I think seatbelts are probably the best, followed by anti-lock brakes (they have helped me to avoid a couple of accidents) and then air bags.

Jeffery

27

BTW, the steering wheel cover did not hit me in the face or anywhere else.

Also, Saturn held off on full deployment of airbags in its 1992 line of cars because they put the cruise control was located on the front of the steering wheel. So, with their current design, the controls would be dangerous in an accident. So, if you had an airbag you could not get cruise control and vice versa back in 1992. They were able to modify their 93 designs (I believe) to allow both.

Jeffery

28

Just to confirm (as best I can) what StrTrkr said, my 1993 Saturn has both cruise control and a driver side airbag.

Once again, I will chime in with information from my husband. I summarized some of the above posts for him. He said this:

  1. Airbags will help prevent injuries or possibly death. However, airbags actually preventing death only happens during an extremely severe accident.

  2. If you have an airbag but don’t wear a seat belt, your injuries will probably be more severe. An airbag can kill you if you are not wearing a seat belt.

  3. The best thing to do is to always wear your seat belt (both the lap and shoulder belts), especially if you have an airbag.

I still can’t get the stinking link to work. If anyone wants to look it up, my husband works for the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS). Sorry I don’t have a reliable address.

29

NASS

30

I was in a car accident. Today. Just a few hours ago. My car is totaled. See “Dream Car” thread in MPSIMS for a detailed explanantion.

I have an airbag, and of course it went off. There were no sharp bits of plastic flying from my steering wheel. There was a lot of dust and a bad smell, and I choked quite a bit. On instinct I threw my arms over my face, and the airbag caused a mild burn on my arms. I was wearing my seatbelt too. I’m still kinda in shock over the whole thing, but I think both seatbelt and airbag helped me walk away with only mild burns. I’m really short, only five feet, so I am glad I didn’t know too much about airbag fatalaties before I had my accident.

31

Wow. I’m glad you’re OK. And I must say that that may be the furthest anyone has ever gone to generate empirical evidence for a GQ thread. Good show!

The rest of you GQers now have a role model to look up to. Get cracking!

NYC IRL III
is on April 15th. Do you have what it takes?

32

Michelle, I’m so glad you’re okay.

Android, thanks for the link. My husband got the address from his boss in Houston, but I couldn’t get to the page using it. Looking at the address on your link, he gave the wrong address. Go figure.

33

My father was in a bad car accident a few years ago. He fell asleep driving home from the coast after deep sea fishing all night. He had the cruise control set at 70 mph. His truck crossed the median, went across the other lane, hit a ditch, few up in the air, landed on the grill of the truck, rolled forward twice, then rolled sidewise a couple of times.

The lady who was driving the car behind my father said that she was sure that everyone was dead. What they call the “jaws of life” were called out and they had to cut the side of the truck off to get my dad and his brother out. The truck was completely totalled. The bed of the truck was flattened and the cab was smashed in. Thank God they wore their seatbelts that day. My father had 3 broken ribs and my uncle walked away with a few bruises and scratches.

Do seatbelts save lives? Yes they do! Can people who don’t wear their seatbelts survive? Sometimes but when you’re talking about your life wouldn’t you rather go with the better odds of survival?

Work is fine for killin’ time, but it’s a shaky way to make a living.

34

First I must apologize to all for the personal insults.

Anyone trying to prove that airbags are safe with statistics is wrong because the statistics are made up. As I have mentioned, there is no way to tell a person would have died. The person probably lived because the accident was not severe enough to have killed him in the first place, and the accident is mistakenly marked as being a life saved with an airbag.

The parachute analogy is false because people have plummeted to their deaths without parachutes. This analogy is totally inappropriate. Instead of using illogical anologies and false statements, can someone disprove logically my statement?

The idea behind airbags is that when an unbelted person flys into the dash the airbag is already there and cushions the blow. But real world events have proved that airbags can never deploy fast enough. Therefore what happens is the driver flys into the airbag which is deploying at the same time and the velocity of which the body hits the airbag is double which the body would have hit a stationary object (e.g. the dash) because both objects (body and airbag) are approaching each other.

Even in America, please do not be surprised that there is a lot of illegal and subtle bribery going on. In other countries such practices are and can be open. In this country it is more subtle and is prosecuted if the parties are unlucky. Campaign contributions are a form of this subtle bribery, ever think of a reason why contributions are limited to $1000 per person and why sometimes in certain companies a large number of people may contribute exactly $1000 each to candidates when they haven’t been on vacation for years? Airbag companies make a lot of money from selling airbags. A lot of money is contributed to politicians in the position to make airbags law. This has already happened, now money is being spent to keep airbags law.

One last thing, never throw your hands in front of a deploying airbag because the force of the airbag can break your arm or throw the arm into your face causing more injuries. The best way to survive an airbag deployment is to hold the wheel at 4 and 8 o’clock and lean as far back in the seat as you can.

35

“The most dangerous concerns for airbag deployment are neck injuries, particularly for short people, and minor friction burns.”
This is a completely false and misleading statement.

Airbags are more dangerous for short people because they are closer to the airbag. There is virtually no chance of them hitting the airbag when it is fully deployed. They hit the airbag while it is deploying. It is ironic that shorter people are safest without the airbags. When people fly forward, they need time and distance to build up velocity. Long armed people are further away from the dash and build up higher speeds before they hit the dash. BUT since they take longer to hit the dash, there is a greater chance that the airbag is already deployed and they hit a soft airbag. On the other hand, short people are closer to the dash and don’t have time to build up speed, therefore they would have been safer prior to airbags. Don’t believe me? Try hitting the wall with your fist from 1 inch away and from 6 inches away, which hurts more?

The most dangerous concerns for airbag deployment are much more than neck injuries and minor friction burns. It is decapitation. This is FACT, you can check newspaper databases. The airbag deploys at high enough speeds and with enough energy to rip heads off. And ask any boxer, when you are punched in the face, neck injury is a minor concern.

36

Er, having just had an accident, I’d like to state that when it happens, you aren’t thinking about ANYTHING. I didn’t see my accident happening until it happened. I threw up my arms on instinct. There was no thought process involved. There was absolutely no time at all for me to think about how I should hold the wheel. Something like the above quote is easy to SAY, not so easy to DO.

37

Here’s the best data I can find, judge for yourself (apologies if this messes up the scrolling).
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/airbags/208con2e.html

Personally, it is my gut feeling that airbags do help (if and only if used in conjunction with seatbelts and with important exceptions for certain persons).
On the other hand, I was once able to avoid a pedestrian after a collision. I fear that if my vehicle had an airbag, that person would have died. In any case, the belts did save me from serious injury/death, and kept me in a position to control what was left of my vehicle.

38

They’re called supplemental restraint systems for a reason: they are made to be used with seatbelts. In other countries, where seatbelts are almost always used, airbags are deployed by a bigger charge. They can’t do this in the US, since there is no way to predict where an unbelted driver will be throughout a collision. I believe that systems that sense the occupant’s height and weight and whether they are wearing their belt to adjust the force of deployment accordingly are in the works, if not already out there.

Considering how much slack is in a normal seatbelt and that a spine can extend up to four inches in an impact, I’m not surprised that fully belted people hit windshields in accidents. The benefit of airbags is that they provide a cushion in head-on collisions which slows down the deceleration in the impact and spreads the force over a greater area of the body. Yes, they come out at high speed, but I’d rather be hit by a pillow going 200MPH than by my car’s steering column at 70. The bags should not deploy for side impacts, at least according to some industry types.

It’s an old line, but if we could do something about them, they’d be called purposes instead of accidents.

39

Why doesn’t Rusty Wallace use air bags in his racecar? If they had any redeeming qualities you’d think those guys would use them.

40

Good question. It’s probably because we haven’t replaced our seatbelts with 5-point harnesses and our adjustable seating for five with a single aluminum wraparound seat; we aren’t wearing helmets and neck supports; we haven’t installed the necessary multi-point roll cage and other safety equipment; we probably didn’t pass a state inspection that morning, much less a full tech inspection; there’s no guarantee that the other drivers haven’t been drinking and, even if one has, our crew can’t walk over to his trailer or pit to discuss it; we don’t have barricades in front of anything that we might run head-on into and our accidents usually consist of one impact while the racers could easily get hit by several cars. Personally, I think a big part of it is that we aren’t all going in the same direction. Then again, it may be because an airbag would prevent the use of quick-release steering wheels and would get in the way while pulling an injured driver out of the car.

It also might be because the cost of designing an airbag setup for a one-off stock car (the word ‘one-off’ should make it obvious that I’m not talking about NASCAR anymore) is cost-prohibitive and the market hasn’t opened up. I doubt it’s because they don’t work; it’s probably more because they don’t work for racing.