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So who drives still with hands at 10 and 2 o'clock in an airbag equipped car?
9 and 3 o'clock is the correct position so your hands / arms don't smash into your face but are pushed out of the way. And feed the steering wheel in a turn, not hand over hand. Those wearing glasses (like me)... expect injuries.
1 hand at midnightQuote:
Originally Posted by bsperka
looks cooler.
Sashadidi - gotta love how at the end they say to give him a drink! It's the answer to everything for a couple of my Russian friends!
Memo to self - got to remember to not drink with them so often.....
Right hand at 3 with elbow on the door works for me ;).
Umm, who the heck told you that???Quote:
Originally Posted by bsperka
Just remembered that the article about airbags I read about referred to a spate of accidents in the USA, which have more powerful airbag deployments as many people choose to not wear a seatbelt. Would love to see some modern real world data for this, especially for Europe and Australia with less powerful charges. I reckon you would have one hell of a headache at the very least!
Read it in a motoring magazine over 10 years ago. Same comment re feet on airbags. Made sense - legs into your chest at over 30kph (more likely 60+ kph) would cause massive internal trauma.
Journo reckoned airbags go off with the same explosive force as a claymore mine. A friend who's an explosive expert (ex Navy) thought that was a bit of exaggeration but didn't do the calculation. Was able to name the explosive components off the top of his head which we then validated and found correct.
Crashes are pretty violent; especially if an airbag goes off. Gives you a better chance of living but with some more broken bits like nose.
Airbags became cheap because a mob in America that manufactured hand grenades and other explosive devices approached Chrysler (?) with a prototype pyro device that was cheaper by an order of magnitude to existing devices and 100% reliable , unlike others at the time. ($70 vs over $700 at the time - 1970s prices). A pyro chemical reaction produces the required volume of CO2 in such a short time.
Replacement was originally set for 10 years; crashes in America after 15 , 20 years where the airbag deploys correctly has changed that. Nain concern is bag material failure. The 10 years was because in good old USA it's a primary restraint; in AU it's a secondary or supplementary restraint. Personally I prefer accident avoidance - ABS and ESC.
Current issues with airbag recall by Japanese manufacturer is because bits of the airbag break and become projectiles resulting in death from the projectile. Don't know which bits though. Alloy parts so bits which shouldn't....
is the amount of force in proportion to the speed required?
An ad from Honda showing what happens when your airbag is 1/100th of a second late.
[ame]https://youtu.be/yKKa1HrnBJg[/ame]
Cheers
Dan
Honda must have the timing on theirs set about right.
Our young bloke was involved in a prang in his Honda Civic a while back. A Dunnydoor ran through a red light in front of him and he hit the side of it. Dunnydoor was a write-off, Honda was sort of still driveable, but I towed it home with the Disco and he ended up parting it out.
Airbag went off - his only injury was a sunglasses shaped indent in his scone for a couple of days. :D