THAT fact, plus new fact that modern airbags ignore saving lives of 250 pound males (original criteria) and set for 150 pound people. Too many 9 years olds had entire faces bones smashed in when sitting in passenger seat.
21 years ago, arguments to eliminate saving large men and save more womens lives : https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/web_doc_may04_0.pdf
so they slowed the bags down from highway speeds, and lowered the explosive charge for non-football-player males.
doing both of those made less lawsuits for harmed people in PARKED CARS getting hit potentially, so they added parked cars allowed to have airbags deploy if driver in seat and keys in ignition.... i presume.
I still don't understand why it didn't go off when he hit the pole or maybe I'm missing something?
It seems like he didn't hit the poll (sudden impact), but somehow drove up it. The ease with which it gave in and his ability to continue going forward, and up it, maybe have caused a G force similar to hard breaking.
He might have only been going under 14 mph, in a car than measures that, or other factors.
Or... the magnetized ball bearing detectors have more leeway sensitivity for VERTICAL dislodge vs frontal impact inertial change.
airbag non-deployment (ABND) is a complicated philosophical issue. A spurious deployment CAUSES fatal collision deaths, spinning cars into harm sometimes, so most airbags try hard to measure speed of car, and others ignore that and use other cues.
GM gets tied up in this argument more than they should :
https://www.safetyresearch.net/gm-airbag-non-deployments-what-the-nhtsa-data-really-show
Deploy threshold speeds to ignore firing :
solid, fixed barrier at 8 to 14 mph or higher, OR striking a parked car of similar size at about 16 to 28 mph or higher:
https://www.safercar.gov/Vehicle%20Shoppers/Air%20Bags/General%20FAQ
Ah, thanks for explanation. So, this is way more complicated than I imagined.
(post is archived)