Hypothetical Crash Scenario
 

You are in a situation where you can see a crash is imminent. A frontal/side impact of some sort. If one has time do you think you should grab the headrest with your arms over your head to mimic a low tech HANS device. Perhaps the airbag would hit your triceps.
Thoughts?

Pic not to scale.

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Maybe?
I doubt I could hold on with enough force to keep my arms from flying forward.

The HANS is for situations where the body is strapped down in a harness, not so much for a passenger cars 3 point since the body can rotate forward much more.

This isn't a hypothetical for me either.
I let go of the wheel, crossed my arms across my chest and crossed/pulled my legs back from the pedals.

Can go into more detail about my crash if needed.

1/ Sure, crashes occur at different speeds. At some not very high speed I'm guessing one wouldn't be able to stop the mass of one's head from escaping my suggested arm cage.
2/ I was using a HANS as a comparison not as a suggestion to using a HANS on the road.
3/ Thank you but no need.

I appreciate there are many variables in a crash but I have often wondered if my idea has any merit.

Try it? Please record results.






p.s. don't try this.

I have always thought, given time to think and react, I'd do similar to @x808drifer except I would put my arms up closed in front of my face (like a boxer blocking a shot). I've seen folks that took a header into an airbag, it isn't always pretty.

I wear glasses so in the event of an airbag deployment situation, im either going to go blind, have glasses embedded onto my face, or will be wearing the worlds largest set of contact lenses.

Whenever we are on a road trip I'm constantly whining at MomHawk because she likes to put her feet up on the dash of the suburban, or use her laptop in her lap. neither would be good in a front end crash.

I don't know about the arms in front of the face thing. I knew a gal years ago that was in a pretty low speed front collision. She was turning and her arm was crossed in front of her holding the wheel. The air bag caused a compound fracture in her arm, and her arm hit her face so hard it broke her nose and two black eyes.

+1 to the airbag sometimes hurting more than the wreck lol. with my first twin, as soon as I saw the lady run the redlight, I put my left arm up I guess to shield my face and the bag left a nice imprint on my forearm.

Looks like a recipe for fucked up shoulders/elbows/wrists/hands when your steering wheel airbag goes off and hits your arms instead of stopping your head from moving forward and you end up with whiplash anyway.

Car safety systems designed to deploy as if you're driving the car, don't fuck with that.

Not that bad, like getting punched in the nose/just above the lip more then anything else, glasses undamaged at ~25-30mph collision.

You are probably right particularly if you don't make it the whole way in time. The explosive force of the airbag will pretty much damage any arm not in the proper driving position (10 and 2, or 7 and 4) If you are at 12, with your wrist draped over the top, it's almost guaranteed to cause damage.

You also need to sit the correct distance from the bag. MomHawk and one of my sons (both who are short) sit with what is probably less than two inches from the steering wheel. I've tried to teach them better, but they say it's too uncomfortable to drive any other way. Even tried adjusting the pedals but that didn't help.

Yea, I have a bad habit of driving with just my right arm at about 11, especially on long trips in the truck. I have to keep telling myself "use the thumb hangers".

I wear glasses and was involved in a two-lane no median highway head on collision/glancing with Euro style cab-over light truck about 8 years ago (not in a Twin). Speed was about 60-65 for both vehicles, but the angle was partially glancing. Front and side airbags deployed. My glasses were lost but didn't injure my face/eyes. I had a nasty bruise from the seat belt (across shoulder and chest, but not on the pelvis/hips) and on my left side (presumably from the B pillar protruding into the seat area, which also meant firefighters had to cut it to get me out) and plenty of glass shrapnel in my arms and neck, but nothing in my face. Had a severe whiplash but otherwise not seriously hurt.

Also, unless you actually use glass for your lenses, most plastic lens material will probably just fly away. To give myself that extra edge I prefer polycarbonate lenses (same stuff safety goggles are made of), and unless you really need high index lenses there are no downsides to it.

For the OP, unless the scenario is a really low speed collision you can see coming (perhaps an ice slick at low speed) I doubt you'd be in any position to prepare or would be able to physically restrain yourself. Try your maneuver with a full on emergency stop in an empty stretch of road (or better yet, have a buddy drive and do the braking while you hold head, eliminating knowing the exact moment of braking). Now remember that a sports car brakes doesn't even reach 2g and imagine doing that with 10x peak deceleration (depending on speed).

I will take getting punched in the face by an airbag over having my arms smacked onto my face by one any day thank you.
The bags are designed to impact the face and upper chest and distribute the force. Yes, to will mess you up a bit but far less than having some nice solid arm bones in between. Oh and before the airbag conspiracy theorists show up it will mess you up far, far, far, far less than bouncing off the steering wheel!

Grabbing the headrest is not going to mimic a HANS device in any way shape or form as you are not going to be able to hold on worth shit anyway.

If I have time to reach up and grab a headrest I am going to use that time to try and avoid the crash anyway. Even if I fail my body will at least be in the position that the airbag was designed to do the most good.

Maybe for 10mph or less. Take a ten pound bowling ball and send it down a lane at 15+Mph, and see if you can easily catch it.

If you are that worried about it I recommend installing a hans device.

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You typically wear a HANS device, it's not necessarily something you install in the car.

Install the loops into your head.

not really.

my first brz got wrecked when i was wearing glasses. just the steering wheel airbag went off. the glasses i wear/wore(now in contacts, but keep the glasses for backup) are polycarbonate lenses, and flexon(flexible, twist around your finger type) frames, so they might have fared a little better than other glasses, but not much.

the frames did get slightly bent and dusty from running my face into that talc-filled bag that didn't exist one moment and then became all of my existence the next, but honestly, i was more sore/bothered by the bruise across my shoulder/neck area from the seatbelt, the wind being knocked out of me by said airbag, and the fact that my car just got destroyed. 2 minutes later, i really wasn't even thinking about anything to do with my glasses after i re-adjusted the frames like i'd done for a million other reasons. my nose didn't hurt from the nosepads, my ears didn't hurt from the frames.

just remember, it is quite common that drunk drivers walk away with minimal damage from bad wrecks, while the people they hit usually end up in really bad shape if they aren't outright killed by the incident.

tensing up makes things worse, and bracing yourself while pointing your elbows at the explosive charge has every way to end badly.

Yeah, I've read a few stories, not driving related, that being relaxed/floppy results in a better outcome than being tense.

Well haha yeah but if you don't have something to clip it too than it's just a big neck brace.

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Of all of the things you have to worry about, this is not one of them.