Airbag - A luxury or safety feature?

@Srinivasan

1) disagree completely-i have complete faith in 'our' people, maybe because i am a optimist.

2)all modern airbags have sensors for weight of the passenger and differential triggers

3)injury or death = i choose injury!

4)please quote an official website that bans or discredits airbags-the situation is similar to the ones in the 60's when there was so much hoopla about using seat belts-with the chance of blunt trauma to viscera still present.

So the seat belts will also cause injury-do you advocate against them also?

Another big aspect is regarding other types of  airbags

Knee
side
curtain
rear

again repeating-there are no safety concerns with these types.

I do agree that out roads needs to improve-but what actually needs to change is the mind set of the citizens of this country-by obeying rules and having faith in a Great Nation like ours.

I completely respect your point of view and wishing you many more happy and safe years of motoring.

As Pankaj has put forth -agreeing to disagree is the essence to any good discussion. I hope i have not impeached in anyway on  personal lives - the 'taste' of instruction in some of my posts stems from my peculiar professional demands, hope the same has not offended you in any sense.



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@Pankaj: You are right in that the statistics do seem to support the use of airbags. But the fact is that airbags can injure children (albeit rarely) even in a slow-speed accident for which airbags were not required in the first place. No parent can ever accept such a situation, which is the ultimate nightmare scenario. Still, I agree that looking at the matter from a logical and statistical angle, airbags do save lives more often than they do harm.

 

@Binoy: You are entitled to your opinions and I am not in the least offended by the manner in which you expressed them. As Pankaj noted, it has led to a healthy discussion and we should agree to disagree on certain points. I am very happy to have such discussions, even if I am proven wrong.

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@Srinivasan, sorry for stretching the topic a little… but I cannot resist from reiterating the following in the above context (quoted):

 

Children, irrespective of their age, should necessarily be made to sit in the rear seat – with or without Airbag - for the reason just cited by you that no parents would accept any type of injury (or whatever) to their children.

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@Pankaj, I agree with you. And I will admit I am guilty of allowing my 11-year old son to sit in the front seat because he creates a big fuss when I try to force him to sit in the rear. However, as you point out, we have to be strict in such situations and I plan to do that in future.

 

But there are certain situations in which we have no choice but to allow  a child to sit in front. For example, on Saturdays, I take my son and three of his school friends (all 11-year old children) in my car to the cricket ground. In that case, one of the children have to sit in front and they take turns to do so. Children will often lean forward in the front seat, say, to adjust AC or stereo. It would be very difficult to force them to sit back and maintain distance from the dashboard, as is required in an airbag-equipped car. So at least till safer airbag designs are available in 2012, we should have the ability to turn off airbags in such situations and cars should come equipped with switches for that purpose.

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Oh yes, it's quite natural & there's no harm as such, as the drives are small & restricted to city (speed is also less).

 

I actually didn't mean in that sense. 

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Airbag could hurt a person, the chances are very very minute. But yes, it surely safes the person in case of an accident. When a front impact occurs, a persons head tends to hit the steering wheel of the car, but these days even before the person's head starts moving towards the steering, the airbag gets deployed and hence the chances of injury are reduced.



I tried this and I had understeer, I tried that and I had oversteer, at the end of the corner I just ran out of talent!

Hi PPL. now a days almost all the cars are offering airbags as a safty feature, how ever i jus got some questions abt it.

1. After how much impact do the airbags pop out? Would like to knw this as at times u might jus bump in to a car or other cars mite bump into u from behind at low speeds and one might not really need an airbag to be saved. Especially, if u hv bought a new car, there are chances that u might be involved in minor accidents. But if airbags pop-out in such minor accidents, then it will be very expensive to maitaine it.

2. How much is the cost to put the airbags back one they pop-out?

3. Does insurance cover fixing airbags after an accident?

I heard they cost approx 20k. If thats the rate to fix it, then PPL will think twice abt buy a car with airbags, especially in the B+ segment, where one might be able to afford it but maitainence might become expensive.

Waiting for reply!!

I have these qestions after reading this

http://www.complaints.com/2008/june/23/Maruti_Swift_Air_bags_problme_174830.htm

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@Chaitanya: This is exactly the kind of scenario I fear when buying a car equipped with airbags. No one (least of all our authorized service outlets) knows whether the airbags will function as intended. The only saving grace in the Swift case is that at least the airbags did not injure anybody while deploying unnecessarily in a low-speed accident.

Recently I travelled in a luxury taxi (Honda City Zxi) equipped with airbags. My son as usual insisted on sitting in front and my protests were overruled. The driver was not aware of the precuations that needed to be taken by front-seat passengers when travelling in a car equipped with airbags. I managed to insist and get my son to push his seat back and stay as far away as possible from the dash, while enduring cynical comments from the other elders in the car.

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@ R Srinivasan : I agree that airbags are necessary when there is serious impact, But then if it keeps poping-out every time the cars gets banged, then its unnecessary maitainance cost. and I believe now a days the new cars are quite safe if seat-belts are used for low-speed accidents.

Chaitanya kindly go through the previous pages of this thread-all these aspects have been well covered.

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