Airbag Activation

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Tue 6 Mar 2007 11:35
Airbag Activation - picnic
Having been in a rear end shunt (hit by third party, me stationary, them about 45 -50mph), neither airbags in the both vehicles went off. Mine a Polo, theirs a Yaris?

So I supposed the question is, should I have expected my airbag to open or not? Theirs I assume should of.

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Tue 6 Mar 2007 11:49
Airbag Activation - jc2
Yours would need frontal collision;I would have expected theirs to at that speed.
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Tue 6 Mar 2007 11:55
Airbag Activation - LeePower
So what do you expect a front airbag to do for you in a REAR end collision?

The airbag would have been no use to you at all so that's why the SRS control unit in your car didn't deploy it.

The other car most likely sensed that the seatbelt pretensioners where all that was needed to protect the people inside for the accident so it wouldn't have fired the airbags off.

It takes a much larger accident to fire airbags off in a modern car, the original Ford airbags that appeared around 1993 would fire off in any front end accident over 12mph.

Remember the 5th gear crash tests with the 2 Renault Espace's hitting head on, the newer design only fired the seatbelt pretensioners off because the accident wasn't severe enough for the airbags to be needed.
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Tue 6 Mar 2007 11:56
Airbag Activation - AR-CoolC
I very much doubt the final collision speed of the Yaris was 45-50mph, as there would be very little left of bot cars now, I suspect by the time they actually hit you it was below 20mph.

You air bags are not needed in a rear shunt as you are thrown backwards not forwards, and the yaris' were not needed as the collision speed and de-celeration (sp?) was low enough.



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Tue 6 Mar 2007 12:02
Airbag Activation - picnic
The speed quoted was the driver's estimate. They pulled out from the middle lane to the outside where there was stationary traffic (and me at the back), did not slow down as they stated they did not see me or the queue of traffic in front of me !!!

The cracked ribs I got though off the seat belt made it feel like 40 mph+
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Tue 6 Mar 2007 12:04
Airbag Activation - picnic
The reason I asked regarding the rear end is that I had something similar in my Honda Accord about 6 years ago and that deployed on impact of the rear end.

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Tue 6 Mar 2007 12:28
Airbag Activation - BazzaBear {P}
To be honest, at a closing speed of 40mph, I wouldn't expect much to be left of either car beyond the passenger cell, at the accident end. Did you get shunted forward into the car in front?
If so, do we think that collision should have set off the airbags?
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Tue 6 Mar 2007 12:41
Airbag Activation - picnic
I just happened to look in my rear view mirror just as their car was coming across the lanes and wrongly put heavy foot onto the brake so I would not rear end the car in front, thus avoiding the knock for knock insurance merry go round that I would expect.

My car did lurch forward a foot or , but stopped just short of the car in front
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Tue 6 Mar 2007 13:17
Airbag Activation - AlastairM
Only moving forward a foot or so would suggest impact speed a lot lower than 40mph
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Tue 6 Mar 2007 14:55
Airbag Activation - Bill Payer
Here's a Yaris crashing at 40MPH:
www.euroncap.com/images/results/superminis/car_246...f

Ok, your car would have absorbed some of the impact too, and it moved forward a little, but the fact that airbags didn't go off in the Yaris would indicate a *much* lower speed.
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