Kia Rio air bag deployment

Hello all:

Can anyone tell me, "at what minimum speed should the air bag(s) deploy in a front end accident in the 2002 Kia Rio?" Does the owner's manual provide any insight into this question?

I am a paralegal student researching product liability cases and I'm in need of this information. I thought I'd try this group before I call around to the dealers, who are not really willing to give out information if you're not buying a car.

Thanks in advance for any help that can be provided.

Eddie

Reply to
E.A. Sloan
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An easier question to ask than it is to answer.

As with airbags in all vehicles, deployment criteria is not entirely based on one parameter, but rather a dynamic combination of several. For example, what would make an airbag deploy in one vehicle going 25mph during an accident and not deploy in an identical vehicle going 25mph in another accident?

Here are just a few of the parameters: Overall rate of decelaration. Duration of decelaration. Angle of impact. Outside forces (speed of the other vehicle in a head-on collision, for example) Some measure the degree of braking before the impact. Some may take into account the weight of the person and perhaps the position/proximity of the seat to the steering wheel/dash. Some vehicles have higher thresholds (for example, 4 wheel drive trucks, which are expected to be used on rough terrain). Some vehicles have lower thresholds (for example, light-weight sub compact cars, with low mass and small passenger compartments).

Anyone who gives you a fixed figure for any vehicle (like 30mph) is just blowing smoke at you unless they also tell you the exact parameters of the incident as well (like "head-on collision against an immovable wall at exactly 90 degrees impact angle with a 150lbs driver who is restrained and has the seat all the way back and didn't apply his brakes). Even changing the angle of impact by only a few degrees at exactly the same speed can make a world of difference.

In 20 years on the job including 16 years at my current department, I have heard a great many people say they couldn't understand why the airbag did (or didn't) go off in their accident. Funny thing is they were all alive and well to be able to ask that question. The very few who were involved in accidents where the airbag didn't help were situations where nothing would have helped (children in reverse-facing car seat are a different story, however).

Every time airbags are mentioned on any newsgroup it usually starts a (sometimes heated) discussion.

Cheers - Jonathan

Reply to
Jonathan Race

Hello Jonathan:

Thanks for your very informative response. You could have easily stated your first sentence about the question being easier asked than answered, but thankfully you went much further. Based on your response, I'm going to bypass this deployment issue and focus on other similarly important aspects of the investigation I'm conducting.

I also was in the fire/rescue field for ten years. I was a Volunteer Fireman, Fire Marshall, and Fire Code Enforcement Office in Montgomery County, PA between 1984-1994. I then went on to work for the University of Penn Health System as their Life Safety Coordinator. Over the years, I have taught many fire related programs as a way of passing along all of the knowledge I have been fortunate enough to accumulate over the years. I was glad to see that you passed along some of your technical knowledge to someone who had an immediate need to better understand a particular safety issue.

Thanks again for the insight. Although it didn't give me the simple numeric answer that I was hoping for, it did open my eyes to the big picture for future reference.

E.A. Sloan Paralegal Student/Intern

Reply to
E.A. Sloan

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