Accident In My Prius (airbag question)

I think you may be mistaking the Hollywood version of airbags for their reality.

Airbags are for serious, catastrophic impacts. Do understand that the airbag is a chemical explosion and will often leave the person with injuries from its very deployment.

"There have been multiple reports of head and neck injuries related to airbags, mostly (but not uniquely) from the USA. Injuries include facial trauma,8 temporomandibular joint injury,13decapitation,14 and cervical spine fractures.15,16 In addition to bony neck injuries soft tissue injuries are also seen with both types of system, including damage to the vasculature.17–19The eye seems to be particularly vulnerable to injury, especially if spectacles are worn20: injuries include orbital fractures,21 retinal detachment,22 and lens rupture.23 The chemicals involved in inflating the bag have been implicated in eye injury,24 as have the cover components.25 Front seated children are also at risk of eye injury.26 Eye injuries are more commonly reported in the USA."

Injuries associated with airbag deployment -- Wallis and Greaves 19 (6): 490 -- Emergency Medicine Journal

Earlier airbags have decapitated children in rear-facing car seats and shot their heads out of the rear window, that's the sort of energy we're talking about.

Suffice it to say, the airbag is serious business.

But they are the very last line of defense against the sort of sudden deceleration from impact that will rip your internal organs from where they are, and you will bleed out from a ruptured aorta in literally seconds. Or your brain from shredding itself bouncing within your skull.

The sort of fender-bender that leaves your wife "a little sore in the neck and back" is not what its for. It's not a fluffy pillow that comes out to make the collision all comfy. It'll be just short or running face-first into a brick wall... but with just enough give so you don't die or become a vegetable. So be glad it didn't deploy, and appropriately so.

Despite my prior tone, I am glad your wife is okay.

 

Ok I'm walking to work tomorrow

 

DtEW summed it up!

An airbag is like being punched in the face very hard. It hurts, it's unpleasant but is better than having the steering column go through your face without one.

Similar with side airbags. If they didn't go off and your wife isn't in hospital, then they didn't need to go off.

 

Oh, here is an airbag. You can see it's a passenger-side front airbag.

There's loads of this sort of video on Youtube. Note that they always protect the victim with some sort of padding over the airbag in these pranks. Such will not be the case in actual usage.

 

Most front impact airbags activate around 25 mph. Not sure what magic number sets the side airbag off. Glad she is OK. I have seen many people get road rash on their wrist and forearms from the airbag and some get their wrist broken. But that is much better than crushed chest or busted head on windshield. 24 years as a fireman.

 

If it was a glancing blow and not a full on T-Bone the air bags usually won't deploy in that type of situation.

 

Wonder how many beers it took before the guy in the first video "did it"? Not long for THIS world!

Airbags will burn your skin if they contact it directly. Think solid rocket fuel burning in a bag.

I presume the car will be repaired, not written off? In that case the side airbags should not have been deployed.

One funny ? final observation. If the airbags go off you are half way to a write-off. Added together they all will cost well over $2000 to replace. Not to mention the damage to the car and occupants to make they go off.

 

Automatic write off over here except maybe the odd very high valued super car or Roller.

 

The owner's manual says the side airbags are set to go off when the force applied to the car exceeds the force of a 3300 lb vehicle strikes the cabin perpendicular to the Prius at a speed of 12-18 mph. A typical freeway accident meets almost none of these conditions; the impact is usually fairly glancing, the speeds are fairly similar, many vehicles are less than 3300 pounds, etc.

In general, everybody else here has been right; airbags can cause injury and destroy parts of the car. There are many types of accidents where airbags will provide no benefit; it's a GOOD thing they didn't go off, because they probably would have provided no benefit in your wife's case.