jwoods61us wrote:
I'll take those odds (1:52,499,800) and keep my air bags; especially after having been involved in two serious accidents (neither my fault), one with seat belts only and one where the air bags deployed (also wearing seat belts) and in both I was uninjured.
This is the last I'm going to comment about air bombs. Your experience shows just how unnecessary air bombs are. In both wrecks, you were protected by your seat belts. The air bombs were superfluous.
In my youth, I had a very serious wreck when a drunk drive (0.3 BAC) dropped out of the opposite lane and hit me head-on. I was in a brand new Datsun 280Z. The police speculated that he thought there was a turn lane.
I was cruising at about 60mph. The drunk was probably doing 30.
The crash pushed the entire front end up to the firewall under the car Datsun built the driver's capsule strong enough that not even the door was jammed. I was holding the wheel at the standard 10 and 2 positions. The seatbelt did its thing in letting me move forward a bit. Enough to bend the steering wheel down around the steering column.
The seat belt got so hot from absorbing energy that it melted and when it was cool it was rigid. I had a large thermal burn where the belt had been resting. I was otherwise uninjured.
That really opened my eyes to the value of seat belts. The Z had a simple ratcheting mechanism and I had gotten in the habit of tugging the belt tight for a snug fit, mainly to avoid having that loose feeling on my chest. That was critical to saving my life, so said the accident reconstrutionist.
If air bombs were so vitally effective then we'd see them in race cars. What we do see is a mega version of seat belts - a 5 point harness. I'd have one of those in my vehicles it it were practical.
Finally, I'll refresh everyone's memories about air bombs. When the government first forced them on us, its claim was that they were there to protect the un-seatbelted. They made no clain of protection of properly belted people. The rest is typical mission-creep.
John