4 ms·

To be fair, any crash above 70mph and the airbag might as well not exist.

Govindae 9y ago
A 70mph crash doesn't necessarily involve an unsurvivable impulse. Most accidents are not of the vehicle plows into immovable object sort.
chapmindustries 9y ago
Not true. If you weren't paying attention and crashed into a car slowing down somewhat gently in front of you then the crash could be rather prolonged and the airbag would be absolutely essential. If you crash into a brick wall going 70 mph that's a totally different situation.
rebootthesystem 9y ago
This is simply not true. What causes damage and hurts or kills is rapid deceleration, not speed. Sure, speed is a necessary component in order to achieve the most violent deceleration but speed alone does guarantee damage at all. The racing world proves this conclusively. Watch Formula 1 or NASCAR and you'll see 200 mph crashes where everyone walks away. Watch motorcycle racing and see guys fall of their bikes at all kinds of speeds and just glide on their backs until they stop, get up and walk away. I went off track at Willow Springs raceway doing 120 mph, no big deal.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  You're right but your supporting evidence is applied wrong. People survive crashes in racing regardless of speed not because the crashes typically take place over a long period of time but because they have a seat that fits them well, straps keeping them in it and heat restraints. Also, going off track is not crashing.
  - rebootthesystem 9y ago
    You missed my point: Speed does not kill. Going off track at 120 MPH was not fun. Dirt, rocks, slashed two tires. Beyond that it was uneventful. The speed just makes it last longer and probably contributed to the huge holes on the tires. You can have a crash on the highway at 100 MPH and have it be just an uneventful other than a crunched-up car. It's a function of the delta in speed AND the delta in acceleration, angle, forces, etc. In other words, if the car in front of you is decelerating gently vs. violently, etc. Too many permutations to list. What you don't want is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No7v2ps6ukI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No7v2ps6ukI It doesn't even look like they are travelling fast at all.
    - lostlogin 9y ago
      Its hard to argue against the logic that people travelling slower would reduce injury and harm. It's sure annoying to crawl along slowly, but it's also pretty hard to hurt yourself doing it.
      - rebootthesystem 9y ago
        Well, there's a limit, right? The point of a highway is to move people from point A to point B as quickly and safely as possible. In other words, we need to optimize for both. If we optimize only for safety we'd crawl at 5 mph.
    - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      >You missed my point: Speed does not kill. No, we're agreeing on that. I'm saying that most of the benefit in a typical racing situation comes from seats and restraints. Look at some of the wrecks from the cup series race last weekend at Indianapolis. They're not walking away because the wreck took a long time. They're walking away because they weren't bouncing around inside. The human body can survive plenty of G forces. http://www.ejectionsite.com/stapp.htm http://www.ejectionsite.com/stapp.htm "Stapp'd endured 25 Gs. It was the equivalent of a Mach 1.6 ejection at 40,000 feet, a jolt in excess of that experienced by a driver who crashes into a red brick wall at over 120 miles per hour. Only it had lasted perhaps nine times longer. And it had burst nearly every capillary in Stapp's eyeballs. " "Stapp had already proven what he'd set out to prove: that a pilot, if adequately protected, could survive a high speed, high altitude ejection"
  - masklinn 9y ago
    > and head restraints. What do you think an airbag's purpose is?
    - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      to cushion hit you hard if your unrestrained head happens to get close to the steering wheel but not as hard as the steering wheel itself would hit you. Google "HANS device". That's a restraint.
      - inferiorhuman 9y ago
        Another name for air bags is "supplemental restraint system".
      - rebootthesystem 9y ago
        They control deceleration.
      - masklinn 9y ago
        > to cushion hit you hard if your unrestrained head happens to get close to the steering wheel but not as hard as the steering wheel itself would hit you. The belt does that unless you literally have a rubber neck. The point of the airbag is to restrain your head so that it does not snap forward too fast and break your neck (heads are heavy, and necks were not built for sudden forward deceleration), that's why it needs to inflate so fast: it has to be fully inflated before you faceplant in it, so that it can slow down your head's forward movement, that's why it has vents and starts deflating as soon as it's fully inflated, and by the time you've stopped it is fully deflated. If it were a cushion it would have no reason to deflate on its own and the deflation would not, in fact, make any sense at all. > Google "HANS device". That's a restraint. The HANS device is a better restraint, it is also a much more cumbersome one and requires wearing a helmet, nobody is going to wear a HANS in their while driving to the corner store.
- userbinator 9y ago
  Watch Formula 1 or NASCAR and you'll see 200 mph crashes where everyone walks away. ...and more interestingly, none of the cars have airbags. What they do have, however, are very tight restraints.

A 70mph crash doesn't necessarily involve an unsurvivable impulse. Most accidents are not of the vehicle plows into immovable object sort.

chapmindustries 9y ago

Not true. If you weren't paying attention and crashed into a car slowing down somewhat gently in front of you then the crash could be rather prolonged and the airbag would be absolutely essential. If you crash into a brick wall going 70 mph that's a totally different situation.

rebootthesystem 9y ago

This is simply not true. What causes damage and hurts or kills is rapid deceleration, not speed. Sure, speed is a necessary component in order to achieve the most violent deceleration but speed alone does guarantee damage at all. The racing world proves this conclusively. Watch Formula 1 or NASCAR and you'll see 200 mph crashes where everyone walks away. Watch motorcycle racing and see guys fall of their bikes at all kinds of speeds and just glide on their backs until they stop, get up and walk away. I went off track at Willow Springs raceway doing 120 mph, no big deal.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
You're right but your supporting evidence is applied wrong. People survive crashes in racing regardless of speed not because the crashes typically take place over a long period of time but because they have a seat that fits them well, straps keeping them in it and heat restraints. Also, going off track is not crashing.
- rebootthesystem 9y ago
  You missed my point: Speed does not kill. Going off track at 120 MPH was not fun. Dirt, rocks, slashed two tires. Beyond that it was uneventful. The speed just makes it last longer and probably contributed to the huge holes on the tires. You can have a crash on the highway at 100 MPH and have it be just an uneventful other than a crunched-up car. It's a function of the delta in speed AND the delta in acceleration, angle, forces, etc. In other words, if the car in front of you is decelerating gently vs. violently, etc. Too many permutations to list. What you don't want is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No7v2ps6ukI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No7v2ps6ukI It doesn't even look like they are travelling fast at all.
  - lostlogin 9y ago
    Its hard to argue against the logic that people travelling slower would reduce injury and harm. It's sure annoying to crawl along slowly, but it's also pretty hard to hurt yourself doing it.
    - rebootthesystem 9y ago
      Well, there's a limit, right? The point of a highway is to move people from point A to point B as quickly and safely as possible. In other words, we need to optimize for both. If we optimize only for safety we'd crawl at 5 mph.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    >You missed my point: Speed does not kill. No, we're agreeing on that. I'm saying that most of the benefit in a typical racing situation comes from seats and restraints. Look at some of the wrecks from the cup series race last weekend at Indianapolis. They're not walking away because the wreck took a long time. They're walking away because they weren't bouncing around inside. The human body can survive plenty of G forces. http://www.ejectionsite.com/stapp.htm http://www.ejectionsite.com/stapp.htm "Stapp'd endured 25 Gs. It was the equivalent of a Mach 1.6 ejection at 40,000 feet, a jolt in excess of that experienced by a driver who crashes into a red brick wall at over 120 miles per hour. Only it had lasted perhaps nine times longer. And it had burst nearly every capillary in Stapp's eyeballs. " "Stapp had already proven what he'd set out to prove: that a pilot, if adequately protected, could survive a high speed, high altitude ejection"
- masklinn 9y ago
  > and head restraints. What do you think an airbag's purpose is?
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    to cushion hit you hard if your unrestrained head happens to get close to the steering wheel but not as hard as the steering wheel itself would hit you. Google "HANS device". That's a restraint.
    - inferiorhuman 9y ago
      Another name for air bags is "supplemental restraint system".
    - rebootthesystem 9y ago
      They control deceleration.
    - masklinn 9y ago
      > to cushion hit you hard if your unrestrained head happens to get close to the steering wheel but not as hard as the steering wheel itself would hit you. The belt does that unless you literally have a rubber neck. The point of the airbag is to restrain your head so that it does not snap forward too fast and break your neck (heads are heavy, and necks were not built for sudden forward deceleration), that's why it needs to inflate so fast: it has to be fully inflated before you faceplant in it, so that it can slow down your head's forward movement, that's why it has vents and starts deflating as soon as it's fully inflated, and by the time you've stopped it is fully deflated. If it were a cushion it would have no reason to deflate on its own and the deflation would not, in fact, make any sense at all. > Google "HANS device". That's a restraint. The HANS device is a better restraint, it is also a much more cumbersome one and requires wearing a helmet, nobody is going to wear a HANS in their while driving to the corner store.
userbinator 9y ago
Watch Formula 1 or NASCAR and you'll see 200 mph crashes where everyone walks away. ...and more interestingly, none of the cars have airbags. What they do have, however, are very tight restraints.