hi room, for starters it was my fault... rear end shunt fast road [A47] heavy rain , greasy road , left hand sweeping downhill toward r/h junction.. didnt have nowhere to go
luckily nobody injured
anyhow my car was written off, the other party had obvious rear end damage, boot caved right in
what puzzles me is should my airbag have gone off at that speed ?
i wasnt mimsing or speeding say 55ish
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Depends how hard you hit the other car, the deceleration forces and angle etc etc, it won't necessarily go off.
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From your description, it sounds like it should have done
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How much were you injured?
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my only injury was loss of 4 years NCB and my unblemished 27 years fault free driving record
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Then I'd say the airbag was right not to go off.
Had it done so when not needed you could have suffered airbag injury.
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depends what speed you were doing at the time of impact - would imagine if it was 55mph then it should have deployed?
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Best make sure the airbag is replaced then if you're worried about it...
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The OP said "written-off"!
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From ZK's account, the airbag will be replaced along with the rest of the car. Must have lost most of that speed before impact, though, to be consistent with (a) the airbag not deploying and (b) being here to tell us about it.
Glad you're OK, ZK.
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thanks for the concern, car written off...been paid up by insurers already
had to buy a quick replacement ....... honda civic 1.5 circa last century ( 2 airbags)
bit of a shed but looked pretty decent during the twilight purchase
oh forgot to mention my front seat passenger didnt fare so well he has been to A&E
twice since with muscle pain upper chest and lower sturnem and whiplash
i think i escaped injury because i braced the steering wheel in the 9-3 position
half expecting a face full of rubberised nylon and cordite
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Did the passenger's airbag deploy?
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Glad you're ok ZK ! I've never had that accident but I've come very close when I was younger. Came over the brow of a hill at speed to find unexpected standing traffic. Pre the days of ABS and my car locked up, slithering to an embarrassing, smokey and noisy halt within an inch or two of the car in front. I can still see the look of terror on the face of the back seat passenger who had turned around in the car in front of mine as I screeched and skidded towards it.
Taught me a big lesson that did !
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my front seat passenger didnt have airbag as standard anyway and
we didnt have ABS either. we were in an old mk 3 polo
it was cats and dogs on a downhiller, we didnt stand a chance really
i think it skidded all the way down and hit the poor guy square on
cops turned up in about ten minutes, i got to blow in the bag pretty pronto
i manages to reverse into a farmers field gateway under his instruction
waited 5 hours to get recovered
its pretty scarrey being so close to all those artics whizzing past
coming back from felixtow i imagine fully laden
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If the wheels were locked perhaps that perceived lack of speed convinced the airbag it didn't need to inflate?
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i dont know what triggers airbags, i thought it was an inertia switch?
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Pretty certain they are triggered by the force of impact rather than a set speed as you could be stationary when you get hit.
Airbags, although lifesavers, are not something you want to go off unless you really need them to.
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I thought speed played a part as well. Glad you're okay.
It seems the car figured the airbag wasn't needed and was right. You are not injured. If the airbag had gone off you might be complaining a bit about what that did to you :-)
Sounds like a lesson learned.... when driving home on the M4/M50/M5/M6 yesterday some cars were clearly driving in a way that had they needed to brake suddenly they had no chance of avoiding a collision. When the traffic was like this I was either giving plenty of space and/or reducing speed and getting into the middle lane. Funny how some people can think they can drive so close at anytime - even more a surprise when it's wet.
One driver of an Alfa in stop-start traffic (earlier multi vehicle accident) nearly ran into the BMW in front of him... looked across and saw him using his smartphone and was not concentrating on the car stopping in front. Low speed of course but he got within about 2" of the other car's bumper.
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in the 5 hours my friend and i waited for a recovery vehicle 2 ( two) passers by stopped
to see if we needed assistance, and thanks to them for asking
i know it was a bit of dodgey spot to pull over , but they had time to slowdown turn left
into the side road and park up
as we were sat there with the headlights pointing at the stars and bits hanging off everywhere
it probably looked to them like we might have just bounced off a tree or something
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Quite a good explanation of the air bag on wiki
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbag
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How old was your Polo? I seem to remember scare stories when airbags first came on the scene that they would need changed every ten years or something like that?
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My cousin had a fortuitous escape from serious injury in an S reg Polo. She was 18 and had only had it a few weeks (having moved on from a G reg Escort) when an elderly driver pulled out from a side-road on her right having not seen her approaching. She T-boned his Rover at ~50mph and barrel-rolled 2 3/4 times before coming to rest on the nearside verge sideways-on. A few subsequent aches and pains but nothing cut or broken, although a full ambulance response was deployed. Not sure the Escort would have offered the same protection.
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Yes, I had a G-reg Escort. Weighed 830 kg empty, so I added 10 percent to its mass by getting in. The L-reg Astra that replaced it was an expensive mistake in many ways, but it had door beams and a steering wheel airbag, as well as being 200 kg heavier, so I suspect it would have been a better car to crash. The early 1990s was the time the mass market woke up to crashworthiness as a sales issue.
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my polo was on an s plate too, but having been under it a few times it did look pretty well
put together, having said that i had a pair of new wishbones put on it a month ago and
a new wheel bearing and the tracking too..... it was just coming together ... oh well at least
we all walked away
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Front airbargs should deploy when they sensor behind the bumper is hit, you can see this on the slow-mo NCAP videos, the bags fire as soon as the bumper has crushed, and the car has hardly even started to shave off speed.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=alle3aasrw8
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Volkswagen Polo III - airbag deployment - Baz
