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enginesrus

enginesrus

Mechanical
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Have airbags on the mind. And long before the Takata fiasco there where many people injured or killed by them. I would like to know why certain pressurized gas containers are required to have a pressure relief system or valve, as well as a fairly high strength container, where an airbag inflater can be made from almost a tin can thick steel with no relief system to protect from over pressure. I also curious why such dangerous pressure vessel is allowed to be so many inches from your face, eyes etc. while you are driving a vehicle? Weren't the first airbags deployed by CO2 gas cartridges, located away from the driver?
 
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EdStainless, very true. I'm close to 70, as a kid I rode in the back of pickup trucks, never ever had a seat belt on, sat in the front seat, cars had a nice hard steel dash with no padding. I have no qualms about not having an airbag in front of me in a car. I have been in a few instances where speeding people were in my lane passing another car in hidden corners, and freeway late night wrong way drivers. The cure? To stay alert and always have a plan of what you will do.
I will take the no bag option any day over the dangerous inflator.
Airbags do not protect from crushing accidents, they only help keep your head from going through the windshield. Did you ever see the video of the test driver that would daily crash into a wall at 50 to 60 mph, with no seat belt? The solution is simple, airbags where just fine until takata put ammonium nitrate in the inflators. And there are still many unsuspecting car owners and drivers that THINK its all fine and dandy now because of the recalls. NOT TRUE.
 
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I also grew up pre-safety, and I am glad for airbags.
More cars packed onto roads with much poorer drivers.
I'll take the infinitesimally small risk of the airbag over the very real risk of traffic.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, consulting work welcomed
 
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I also grew up and learned to drive pre-safety-devices, but I also work in the auto industry on the supplier side. Modern vehicle safety systems are an integrated package, No, the airbag alone does not protect from crushing situations, but that's what the safety-cage construction in modern unibodies is for, which greatly reduces the possibility of impacts deforming the part of the bodyshell around the occupants by enough for that to be a problem. That safety cage, plus better brakes, and better suspension, and better tires, and ABS-ESP, and attention paid to where your body parts are potentially going to strike the interior of the vehicle, plus the airbags, plus a lot of engineering into the crumple zones, adds up to a safety package that is enormously better than it was in the 1980s or before.

I don't like the impending intrusion of automated systems on the driver's experience, either, but there's a fair argument that what's on the market now (before The Powers That Be impose automated systems that force the vehicle to comply to all posted speed limits, no matter how ridiculously low they may be) strikes the best possible balance between safety and enjoyment. If it all goes self-driving then the car becomes a mere appliance.

It so happens that the car that I drive today (modern Fiat 500) is quite close to the same size as the car that I learned to drive in (1970s-era Honda Civic). I'm pretty sure that if there were to be a hypothetical collision between these two cars, the modern one would go right through the old one, obliterating the old one in the process along with everything inside it, and the smart airbags in the new one might not even fire, due to the collision being not severe enough to warrant setting them off. That experiment has been done, although with vehicles in a bigger size class ... it'll be the same idea, though:
 
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While I agree in general, whenever you see these old car vs new car crashes they usually base it on model for model, or sometimes size for size. That, frankly, is rigging the experiment, it should be mass for mass. For instance an Espace 5 could weigh 1805 kg curb, the original was 1500.


Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
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enginesrus said:
I will take the no bag option any day over the dangerous inflator.
Airbags do not protect from crushing accidents, they only help keep your head from going through the windshield. Did you ever see the video of the test driver that would daily crash into a wall at 50 to 60 mph, with no seat belt? The solution is simple, airbags where just fine until takata put ammonium nitrate in the inflators. And there are still many unsuspecting car owners and drivers that THINK its all fine and dandy now because of the recalls. NOT TRUE.
Click to expand...

I really don't know why I bother responding to your posts anymore. Maybe it's just my sense of the importance of posterity.

Anyway:




As usual, the data indicates that the current rates of traffic fatalities per vehicle and per mile are not only lower than they were in the 70s, 80s, or 90s - they are significantly lower.

Notice that the entire Takata airbag recall incident did not even cause a blip in the aggregate data.
 
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I am not anti airbag. I am anti ammonium nitrate propellant in the inflator. I just want to be able to replace them with something safer. Recalled vehicles still have the ammonium nitrate. Fragmenting airbags are still with us. That is the issue here. Every time you turn the steering wheel on an older car you run the chance that the airbag will go off. Many times airbags have deployed for no apparent reason, and if your the lucky one with the bad inflator that is ready to spit metal at you then? Give me all the statistics you wish, to the many injured people those all mean absolutely nothing.
And curious why would anyone quote Wikipedia?

The real information.
 
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enginesrus said:
And curious why would anyone quote Wikipedia?

The real information.
<insert random YouTube video>
Click to expand...
The irony is thick with this one...

Dan - Owner
Footwell%20Animation%20Tiny.gif
 
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I wasn't going to point that out.
When I go to Wiki I usually start by looking at the references. If they are a bunch of real sources I'll real it.
No references for youtube is there?

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, consulting work welcomed
 
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And you never even looked at who the presenter was in the youtube video did ya? It is not some phony agenda seeker on Wikipedia.
 
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Since that report included the Beirut explosion of ~3,000 TONS of ammonium nitrate that was co-located with an unknown number of tons of black-powder fireworks that were the initial out-of-control fire source I'd say it's simple sensationalism at its worst. Ammonium nitrate is typically a fertilizer and it's difficult to get it to explode so anyone calling it an "explosive" is fear mongering.

I don't know what happened to Sharyl Attkisson. After 21 years she quit national news to join the intentionally politically active Sinclair Broadcast Group.
 
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There is nothing sensational when your airbag inflator fragments into small sharp projectiles and redesigns your face is there?
 
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That's why Takata is in the midst of a recall. But in the meantime ... the number of actual such incidents, which actually inflicted greater injury than what would have happened in the absence of any airbag at all, is vanishingly small compared to the number of lives that have been saved by airbags over the years, including Takata airbags. If you have a car with Takata airbags and you get the recall notice, get it done. Otherwise, the risk is so remote that it is not worth fretting about.
 
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enginesrus said:
There is nothing sensational when your airbag inflator fragments into small sharp projectiles and redesigns your face is there?
Click to expand...

When the incident rate is so low that the probability of this happening to any individual person is so small as to not even appear in signal beyond noise, no. It's not really sensational. Notable, perhaps. But sensational? Cause for your apparent hysteria? Certainly not.

Highest occurrence rate for fatalities (allegedly) caused by faulty Takata product appears to be 2016, when there were 7 deaths globally. In 2016 there were roughly 1,350,000 traffic fatalities globally.

This means that in 2016, again the highest rate of incidence, takata airbag failures represented .0005% of traffic fatalities globally.

In that same year, in the US, there were a grand total of 2 fatalities. In 2016, in the US, there were 7,277,000 reported traffic accidents per NHTSA. So your odds of being killed by a Takata airbag failure in 2016 were 1 in 3,638,500.

For comparison:

Odds of being killed in a shark attack (annual average): 1 in 3,748,067

Odds of being killed by a lightning strike: 1 in 79,746

Odds of being killed in a railroad accident: 1 in 156,169

Odds of being killed in an accident involving fireworks: 1 in 340,733

So, yeah. This isn't a major concern about which anyone should be terrified.
 
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The main problem with the recalls is. They were just putting new of the same thing in at the time. NHTSA knows that as well, and they are in a lets wait and see what happens holding pattern, that is the problem.
And all those ODDs mean nothing, being killed? I personally don't want to be maimed, especially sight, nor do I want that for my family members either. I don't gamble, if you wish to go ahead.
Logic says get the stinking ammonium nitrate out of the inflators, period.

I would like to know how dangerous the non frontal inflators are? This particular car has 4 more.
 
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Drive with safety glasses and a kevlar scarf. These will also be helpful in the far more likely event someone chucks a rock off an overpass or a deer says "hello" from a leap across the highway.
 
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enginesrus said:
I don't gamble
Click to expand...

Yes you do. Every time you get in a car, a train, a plane, or a boat. Any time you leave the house, and any time you DON'T leave the house for that matter.

enginesrus said:
I would like to know how dangerous the non frontal inflators are? This particular car has 4 more.
Click to expand...

You could find that out if you were willing to do some reading into those statistics you don't trust or believe.

If you read them you'd discover that, like the frontal inflators which apparently terrify you, they are not really dangerous at all.
 
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Now a pre-frontal inflator, that would really sting!

"Schiefgehen wird, was schiefgehen kann" - das Murphygesetz
 
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One of many photos of people injured.

((((You could find that out if you were willing to do some reading into those statistics you don't trust or believe.))))

(((((If you read them you'd discover that, like the frontal inflators which apparently terrify you, they are not really dangerous at all.))))

Give me some links that show what happens with the other airbags that have an ammonium nitrate failure, I'll be very happy to read them.
 
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Cnet article linked by enginesrus said:
NHTSA said there are no reported ruptures in desiccated units and drivers do not need to take any action right now. In addition, the government is also looking at a separate propellant Takata used. The time in service for this propellant is shorter than the others, and NHTSA said it will need to study it further. Right now, this other propellant does not show signs of degradation.
Click to expand...

So........ just fear mongering.

Do you just run around looking at every consumer product you own in terror?

enginesrus said:
Give me some links that show what happens with the other airbags that have an ammonium nitrate failure, I'll be very happy to read them.
Click to expand...

Researching failures that have not happened, to assuage your completely irrational fear, is not my task to complete. If you want to just walk around screaming at the sky for being blue, and wasting time being a drain on this forum, that's on you dude.
 
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