There are all sorts of 'what ifs' about both seatbelts and airbags. But if you ask those who have to deal with the aftermath of road smashes
*both* have reduced serious injury and deaths. With seatbelts being by far the more important of the two.The one proviso appears to be with small children in the front of the car who aren't belted in. However, these should be in the back in the correct seats anyway.
Dave - they are Americans - they have free will and with that mentality it may be much better to hit the windscreen first - one less idiot.
The seat belt thing and air bags were primarily for the laminated screen the US cars had where we only had toughened.
Laminated crushes the skull then when a hole finally appears it will scrape every last bit of skin and flesh from the skull and face area.
Handy if you don't want to be recognised but really makes a mess on the carpet!
...and some people believe they are "safer" riding their motorcycle sans helmet so they can hear and see better. If it weren't for the cost of patching these stupid people up being foisted upon the remainder of society after they prove their own theories wrong, I'd say let Darwin rule.
With things like this, I say, "Let Darwin rule." Full stop.
I draw the line at things where (a) children have to be protected from idiot parents (so I support car seat laws but not seat belt laws) and (b) where there is a significant public risk to the behavior (such as using a cell phone while driving). Other than that, one should be free to be as stupid as one wishes after reaching the age of majority.
Law or no law, you'd never get me to ride a bike (motorized or not) without a helmet or drive or ride in a car without a seat belt.
JRE
Not true. From the perspective of the airbag, everything it needs to know is a constant if the seat belts are in use. The parameters of the accident itself might be considered to be an unknown, but the location of the occupants that the airbags are meant to protect is a known constant. If the occupants are properly strapped in, AND the airbag cannot protect them adequately, then the conditions of the accident are truely horrific.
But
I would agree with that, mostly because it supports taht which I have already been saying. Airbags by themselves do almost nothing, and there is ample evidence that they -- by themselves -- actually may cause even more serious injuries than would have occurred if they were not there. Belts provide the best protection, and couple a belt with a bag, and the protection is even better.
Who asked you?
Unfortunately Jeff, when faced with this exact claim in the past, I had the same response as yours. I spent the time and did the research and uncovered that at least part of the drive to put in airbags was in fact a misguided attempt to provide passive safety for the dolts that are too stupid to provide their own by buckling up.
I agree with you entirely that they do increase the safety of a belt and therefore are worth having, but just wanted to point out that there is a shred of truth in that claim.
Ditto. And I live this. My home state has no helmet law except for riders younger than 18. My wife, my son and I are all over 18 and do not roll down the driveway without a helmet and other protective gear on.
Same with the belts. There is a difference between freedom and stupidity. But I fully support the rights of other people to be stupid. There's way too many people on this planet already to be worried about losing a few of the stupid ones...
It's been so widely reported in the UK - and the bit about US airbags (at one time if not now) being larger than elsewhere - that I can't believe it's not true. But if it is, can others confirm that US airbags are disabled if seatbelts are not worn?
Unfortunately it's not just the stupid driver who suffers. If he is merely badly injured we all pay in one way or another. If unable to work his dependants do.
Yes, but isn't it worth the financial cost to help clean up the gene pool?
That is not true. In fact, most seatbelt systems *IN NEWEW CARS* will inflate (explode) with more force if it detects that the seat belt is not in use but someone is in the seat (smart airbag system). NHTSA finally recognized that airbags themselves were causing injuries.
However, in the front passenger seat position the airbag can in some cases be disabled to provide for the case where an infant seat is placed there, because it's inflation could kill the backwards-facing infant. This is a requirement in vehicles that have no back seats (trucks in particular, although it catches Boxsters and such, too.)
I'm sure that these facts are somewhere on the NHTSA website, but like all govt stuff it's hard to actually find what you want.
FloydR
UK airbags are smaller than American airbags because they work in conjunction with the seat belts. Americans dont wear seta belts so their airbags are bigger to compensate. Even with the bigger airbags it is still better to wear the seatbelts. Safer
The rate of seat belt use continues to climb in the USA, it's been over
60% for ten years, and it now stands at over 80%. (SeeFurther, second- and later-generation air bags deploy with different amounts of force depending on whether the occupant is wearing a seat belt. It's not at all clear to me what this has to do with bag size. (See wikipedia.)
JRE
US airbags are larger because they have US size bodies to stop!
Actually, Americans value their teeth so they are bigger to prevent face to steering wheel contact. Brits, on the other hand...
Value most things like their balls so RR have little holders to put them on called Tees
That is at least true of the first generation of airbags. They were intended to restrain a *170*- pound unbelted individual. The second generation belts as installed in my Jaguar have a low-power trigger for a light individual sitting in the front passenger seat and I believe it fires whether there is a belt in use or not - as long as it detectes weight on the seat.
Not if the seat is occupied. The only airbag system conditions I know of that disable the bag are those that detect the seat is *unoccupied* (in which case you can save the cost of a needlessly fired airbag in a collision) or where it is manually switched because of a special condition (a two-seat vehicle with the need to carry an infant or child seat in front - like the Miata-driving chicks who 'suddenly' end up as single parents).
-- C.R. Krieger Been there; done that
hehe...
I heard a joke about not painting Paris Hilton's cell bars pink because she'd break her teeth on them. I can't remember exactly how it went, but you get the idea.
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