surf is right. Its not the weight or speed. Its the impact force. Deers dont weigh much compared to something like another car. Even at high speeds the impact isnt very high especially when you hit its legs not the deers body which probably could set it off.
Air bags are designed to keep your head, neck, and chest from slamming into the dash, steering wheel or windshield in a front-end crash. They are not designed to inflate in rear-end or rollover crashes or in most side crashes. Generally, air bags are designed to deploy in crashes that are equivalent to a vehicle crashing into a solid wall at 8-14 mph. Air bags most often deploy when a vehicle collides with another vehicle or with a solid object like a tree.

 

Surf is right. Its not the weight or speed. Its the impact force. Deers dont weigh much compared to something like another car and will take absorb most of the force of the crash. Even at high speeds the impact force isnt very high especially when you hit its legs not the deers body which probably could set it off.
The sensor is the device that tells the bag to inflate. Inflation happens when there is a collision force equal to running into a brick wall at 10 to 15 miles per hour (16 to 24 km per hour). A mechanical switch is flipped when there is a mass shift that closes an electrical contact, telling the sensors that a crash has occurred. The sensors receive information from an accelerometer built into a microchip.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/airbag.htm

 

From my chem paper, I had auto air bags as a field of chemistry. This is what I found out...
Basically there is this ball and it's held in place by various methods, when there is enough of a jolt, it gets moved and hits another metal causing a series of reactions leading up to the deployment of the air bag. I also beleive they work in conjuction (2/3 sensors have to go off). But if you did hit a deer, unless it was humongous, you probably shoved it out of the way. Unlike a head on collision, there is force going in every direction.

 

I wasn't supposing anything. I write collision estimates all day long. I know how a car is built, I know what it takes to set of airbags. I know how force travels through a unibody structure and where the force is absorbed. you dont want the airbag to go off unless its a serious accident.

I have about 160 hours of I-Car training in the subject of collision repair plus the 15 plus years I have been around bodyshops. There are alot of uninformed comments being posted on this thread about what the appropriate course of action should be. Granted, I have not seen the car, nor do I know exactly where the force was absorbed, but using COMMON sense, he is driving a tC, the front is relatively close to the ground, deer usually have pretty long legs, AND I have hit a deer in a 73 Nova.. I know what happens when you drill one at 50mph. The majority of the force would have been more of a downward angle and not a straight on impact. Before everyone gets all litigious and thinks about legal action, I think he needs to take the vehicle to a QUALIFIED collision repair facility. They will be able to inspect the damage, and confirm IF there was a malfunction.


Please, have a little more knowledge on the subject before sending people into frenzies about being killed because the bags didn't blow.

 

Johnny Cockran died.

Unless you meant to clone him to spawn a new one, in which case your idea was fine and this post is useless.

 

PICS NOW

 

They shouldn't have deployed. Now if you took your tC at 50mph and crashed into a wall, they would. Why? well like some others said, you'd hit the wall, you obviously CANT move the wall so you car stops instantaneously. The sensors know that 50-0 in 0feet and 0.001 seconds is not humanly possible. So to save your body from slamming into the dash at 50mph(you were moving with the car at 50, the car stopped too fast for you, inertia takes over so your still moving) the sensors deploy the airbags. And viola, you walk away with little to no injury.

Now had they deployed in your situation, I'm assuming that you were still going 55 after you mowed over the deer. They'd deploy at 200 or so mph hitting you in the face and causing you to crash the car, and since they already deployed, inertia would cause you to fly into the dash at 55 mph and that wouldn't be pretty

 

They should not have deployed. Airbags deploy not only in response to impact, but decelleration. You never want the airbags to deploy in that type of wreck for two reasons: 1) You dont need them to and they would be nothing more than a distraction, and 2) Without considerable acceleration on your part (ie your head flying toward the wheel very fast) the airbag will do more damage than good.

 

That is far from "crap" about decelleration.. if yours ever go off in that type of wreck tell me how much they helped... after getting over the severe facial damage and most likely the results of a much worse wreck because of them deploying when they should not have.. that is EXACTLY why older airbag systems almost didnt survive.. lawsuits for them going off in those situations. They did exactly what they should have. So sorry.. your "period" was wrong in this case. Unless that impact would have caused him to slam into the dash they should not have deployed... period. That is the ONLY use for airbags, to keep you and the dash from becoming one.

 

yep IF the decelleration was severe enough.. one huge sign. What purpose would they serve going off when there was not sufficient decelleration to cause you to impact the wheel in a damaging fashion....? NONE except getting into your face... injuring you and cause a more dangerous loss of control. And that 35 mph is an EQUIVALANT measure. It in no way means hitting anything at 35mph.

 

cmon ppl. sue b/c u think an air bag should deploy. wow you ppl are a piece of work. why don't u read about how airbags deploy and the conditions. most airbags measure the gravitational force of deceleration at the point of impact. Just b/c the damage appears very bad doesn't mean that the point of impact was enough to deploy airbags. You people are taking a huge gamble with rediculous odds to prove that the airbag should deploy when hitting a deer @ 55 mph. Unless you have equipment to get the data off of the airbag module and the ecu data recorder, I suggest you be happy that you walked away from the situation unharmed.

 

ha, now I'm imagining the following scenario:

driving along at 55mph.
hit deer, force of hit causes you to slow down to 40mph (crap, anybody want to do the math on this? momentum and all that physics crap? probably figure 3300 lbs with stuff in the car, driver, and a full tank of gas? it's been a LOOOONG time since my HS physics)
BOOOOOOM, airbag goes off.
Now you're disoriented, can't see squat, in a car that's still going 40mph.

let me put it to you this way: did you have to use your brakes after you hit the deer? if you did, then no, your airbags shouldn't have gone off.

oh yeah, and sorry about the damage from the deer. take up hunting and get revenge!!!!!

 

Post pics so we can determine damage.


I agree with previous post, if you hit legs and deer flies over car you might not set off air bags.

 

Some people haven't actually lived through airbag deployment.

Neon + Sebring + 55 = airbag. If that thing goes off while you're moving, you WILL total your car...it removes your hands completely from the steering wheel, then deflates, no more airbag. What if you then needed it because while you had no control, you swerved into the other lane and hit another car head on? Hello death. Not fun.

In other words, your airbag didn't go off because if it did, you'd be in a lot worse shape, and you wouldn't have a tC anymore. Listen to engifineer

 

Using the deer example above... lets say it slowed you from 55 to 40 in about .5 sec (which is very extreme.. most likely more than an average deer would slow you down on its own), you are lookin at about 1.3G of decelleration... which is pretty low, I would not want my airbags deploying in this situation. Airbags deploy in response to many inputs. To inflate one purely by decelleration it takes over 30g. They deploy with less due to measurements of deformation, passenger wieght, etc, but the collision in question is way below this range.

 

You should be happy that your airbags did not deploy.

If they did, when you go to sell the car, the value plummets because that basically means the car was in a horrific accident.

You're fine, the deer is feeding some poor people somewhere, your tC will be rebuilt...

Case closed.

 

you should thank god for those air bags not deploying because of a deer, a friend of mine had one prematurely deploy and the bag broke bones in her face, her nose and eye sockets (iam not saying they all do this but normal ones do hurt like hell when they hit)

 

were you injuried in that accident because the air bag did not deploy?

 

From the title: "Hit deer, airbags don't deploy. Problem?"

I'd say the problem was hitting animals. Don't.