My friend totalled his TC and his airbags deployed...heres the story. He was going down a road and tried taking a turn too fast. he ended up jumping a curb and going over a huge rock. After the car had settled and we looked at the damage, you really couldn't tell that there was any damage besides a cracked rim and body kit. So it can't be true that it has to be a head on collision for them to deploy because his car was not hit in the front...only the undercarry. All of his airbags deployed and NO frontal damage but his undercarry was toe up!!!!

 

Nope i was extremly lucky it did not. but yeah elemeno, thats wat i did, just bought another. just be patient with your insurance and all. mine ended up paying off my totaled tc and returned me an extra 4k.

 

The sensor measures deceleration-- not force of impact, specifically.

 

Ouch, sorry bout your tC. Glad to hear you're ok.

 

sometimes, its not the car, but the loose nut behind the wheel....

 

true ^^^.

heres the thing elemento,

the 500 bucks you wasted on that cf wing you should have bought better tires. its not the fact you spent 500 and its a wing that make your scion ricey, its the height & shape of the wing that make it look like it doesnt belong which makes it ricey .

lowering springs, tires and a good experienced driver would have probably prevented that crash.

the moral of this real life story is:

buy something that could improve your ride for real.

 

As has been said, the impact wasn't enough... more specifically, the deceleration wasn't enough to warrant the airbags going off.

I've been in a rear ender in my dad's Sienna before (I know, not the same car), but the speed at which I hit the car in front of me might have SEEMED like enough, especially with the smashed grill, headlights, and bent hood, but it wasn't.

You have to remember that between lower build "quality" and the fact that cars are designed to crumple in accidents, damage will "seem" much more than the accident that caused it in "minor" collisions like that

Also, always remember to wear that seatbelt

And to that person who claimed a 75 mph collision with no airbags... no offense, but wouldn't you be dead or seriously injured if you got in a head on collision at 75 mph? Something just doesn't seem right there.

 

That was my tC when I got in a wreck last Oct. None of my airbags deployed! I was pretty ticked off! I wanted to sue, I mean I was taken to the hospital and had x-rays and all. I was told by my lawyer that it was hard to sue companys over airbags since there was a lot of money involved. I was just more annoyed than anything though!

 

Same situation as the OP. Offset impact, no deformation in A pillar, no broken glass, etc. Crumple zones did their jobs. I"ve never heard so many people beef about not getting punched in the face at 200mph.

 

^^ISmokeGuys^^ oh snap that looks like your airbags should have deployed

 

^ wow that looks bad, its just hard for me to believe that a car that looks like that did'nt have the bags pop. But I guess after looking at it u can see that it was hit at an angle like mine, and from what people are saying the sensors are more in the front. Did u get hurt at all?

 

^^ what is the story (ISmoke)... it looks like you slid under something?

Doesn't really look like the frontal impact needed for airbags

 

.... let me paint you a picture.

A young girl is driving on a road at 55mph she drops a tire off the shoulder and over corrects back on to the road. She hits an on comming car at probably the same speed. The inertia of her heart was forecul enough to tear it away from her aorta in her chest. She did not last long.

You being taken to the hospital and x-rayed is nother serious. In FACT they are required to take you to the hospital even if your well enough to run there yourself. It's standard proceedure.

You all with totaled cars should be thankful that your airbags didn't deploy if you survived. They are now the most valuable thing in your car.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...65260&q=airbag

 

Yea I fix those wrecks for a living. I've seen some terrible accidents where the airbags never deployed.

What ya have to understand is that its all about where the impact happens. The sensor has a little gold ball inside of it. For the airbags to deploy that little gold ball has to roll back far enough to make an electrical connection, which deploys airbags.

It just depends on where the hit is. That's why you'll see cars that just drove up a curb with the airbags deployed, and fatalities without.

 

come to think of it, my wreck didn't deploy bags and I tboned some dumb broad who pulled out in front of me. There is a picture in my profile. I don't so much care because I was fine just more food for thought, I hit her at 25 mph if that helps anyone...

 

https://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=136846
his came out

 

^^ That looked like a partial head on collision when there would have been a much more rapid and sudden deceleration.

 

Why is it that everytime a female gets into an accident it's always, "oh she was doing this and she can't drive?!" ACTUALLY, what happened in my accident was, I was headed to school that night and was entering an intersection. Some idiot GUY and his child decided to turn from the opposite way in front of me and I had no where to go. I slammed on my brakes, but by that time it was too late. He was driving a Land Rover and I hit him at about 40 mph.

As for the comment about us complaining about not being hit with an airbag. It's not that, it's when you pay extra for airbags and your in an accident like mine, you expect them to deploy. I hit my knees on the dash board, my arm on the steering wheel, and they didn't take me to the hospital cause it was mandatory! They took me b.c I was complaining of my back and neck and other things.

 

In off center accidents there is a huge reason why airbags dont go off. Simple physics, when the force comes at you from an angle the reactive force will push you at an angle. Your head will glance off the airbag probably breaking your neck because of a twisting motion your head will be pushed in from the airbag.

in a head on acident
airbag ---> <---- head

in a accident from the angle the airbag goes off at the same straight on force, but your head/body is going at a glancing angle towards it, thats bad...

as far as your extra airbags (side curtain) they protect you in a side collision from smashing your head through the door's glass (where seatbelts dont help)

both accidents werent head on and as for as the guy who hit his head on the windshield... airbags dont replace seatbelts... plain and simple.

 

I read that we also have knee airbags. So that was another issue for me. I hit my knees really hard and those didn't deploy. How do they come out? lol