Your Airbags Know You're There

After Honda recalled over 300,000 of their vehicles this month due to airbag safety concerns, I started to wonder how an airbag is meant to work efficiently. Oxygen sensors, your power steering pump, and other mechanical parts are expected to show wear after time, but airbags and other safety features should always be ready to work as if they were brand new. In Honda’s case, there is concern that their airbags may explode during a crash causing pieces of metal and plastic to shoot towards the passengers. Not good.

It’s crazy to think that airbags in the driver and passenger seats have only been required by law since 1998. Since then airbags have obviously advanced and are now located in many areas in a vehicle. In many vehicles you can now find up to eight airbags, some of which fall like curtains over the glass windows or deploy inside to prevent passengers from hitting each other. Side airbags can deploy for up to five seconds which is especially important in rollover accidents. To be sure airbags don’t activate from rough pavement or small fender benders, the crash sensors are programed to detect only severe deceleration. Basically, if you got your car going as fast as it can drive and slammed on your brakes as hard as you could, you would only be decelerating at a fraction of the speed the crash sensors are meant to detect

Newer vehicles can even detect how much weight is on a seat so they don’t deploy on, for example, your beagle napping in the passenger seat. They can also determine the severity of a crash, your seat position, whether or not your seatbelt is on, and other factors to know the safest amount of air to fill your airbag (if any). I’ve never seen an airbag deploy and hope I don’t have to, but these advancements in car safety are definitely comforting.. Especially having to commute with these southern California drivers.