Cars are designed to protect users during a crash but sometimes things can go wrong, including the airbags that are designed to keep car users safe effectively causing serious injury.
When airbags work properly they save lives with data indicating that frontal airbags are responsible for reducing driver fatalities by 29%.
However, they do not always work. Airbags can fail to deploy or deploy too forcefully.
Kenyans.co.ke takes a look at some of the four major airbag safety issues that every car owner should know about.
Airbags can fail to deploy
Airbags are designed to deploy when a vehicle strikes another object resulting in a sudden loss of speed which is detected by the accelerometer.
However, a defective airbag can fail to deploy. In such instances, there’s essentially nothing stopping the driver or passenger from suffering severe whiplash, or worse.
Airbags can deploy at the wrong time
A crash sensor failure can also cause airbags to deploy at the wrong time. For instance, if the crash sensor is defective, it can cause the airbags to deploy in a non-crash situation.
This means that the airbag can deploy either a fraction of a second too late resulting in serious injuries to the face and head.
Furthermore, an airbag will sometime deploy when a vehicle hits a curb or even a pothole.
This accidental deployment can not only directly cause injury to an occupant but also cause the driver to lose control of the vehicle and have a serious collision.
One airbag might deploy, but not all of them
Partial deployment of the airbag can also be caused by a defective crash sensor.
This can be due to the airbag being defective by the manufacturer or if it was installed incorrectly it may never deploy or only partially disengage.
Airbags can release too aggressively
If an occupant is struck by an airbag before it completely inflates, the passenger can be injured, blinded, or even killed.
Common airbag injuries include chemical and friction burns, hearing damage, traumatic head and neck injuries, and broken bones.
Defective airbags can be especially dangerous for children and smaller adults.
