T-boned in intersection, airbags didn't deploy
 

Thought I would get some input on this, maybe see if anyone has had similar experiences and or thoughts...

My brother drives (drove) a 2001 civic (130k miles maybe?) and got t-boned in an intersection yesterday, spun multiple times, car is in all likelihood totaled--but the airbags never deployed. I've heard of low speed impacts where they don't deploy...but full speed violent collisions...not so much...

The kicker is that he had just gotten some recall work done on his airbags through the dealership a number of months ago. I don't know whether this is more likely an equipment malfunction just due to the car's age...or whether this is shady / inadequate work done by the dealership service department (who have shown themselves to be lacking in previous experiences with them...)

He is doing alright, no serious injuries (though still in the hospital). I'm not looking to pursue legal action or anything, it's more of a curiosity. Anybody ever had this happen?

The front airbags wont deploy for side impacts most of the time.

I see. I can't say that I know much about airbags...I assumed that any significant force would have caused them to deploy, didn't realize it's dependent on direction of impact.

blow up the car dealership and then sue them!!!

Yup, I've been t-boned driver side door from a red light runner. Rolled the car and crushed the whole bedside, door, and quarter panel, ripped out leaf springs, wheels flying, the whole 9 yards... no airbag. 2001 toyota tacoma, no side air bags.

Wow. Glad you're still here.

Lol me too, me too

There is no advantage to having front airbags deploy in a side impact so most do not. Many new systems will deploy the front bags in case of a roll over but these are usually just the cars that have side bags as well.
Side bags inflate and stay inflated for a much longer than front bags since they are designed to take a lighter but possible longer or larger number of impacts (i.e. rolling the car several times.
Front airbags are designed to take a very violent (remember in a head on your speed could be more than doubled) but brief impact so they are only actually inflated for a microsecond. When in a crash the front bags deploy so fast that by the time your head hits it they are already deflating. Take my word for it you do not want your head to hit an actively inflating airbag. The results are not pretty.

Probably be more effective to sue and then blow them up though lol


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I would say sequence of events is pretty crucial in that case yes.

that's not how the insanity wolf mindset works

That makes sense. It doesn't appear to be the case in this particular situation (his nose is pretty broken and his most severe injury is head/brain trauma). But I can see how most of the side impact crashes would likely not benefit from front air bag deployment.

And yea, i've seen the aftermath of someone hitting a deploying airbag, had a friend who lost a bunch of teeth from it o.o Definitely not pretty.

Common misconception. Two equivalent cars hitting each other head on at the same speed is not materially different from one car hitting a stationary, immovable object at that same speed.

Deleting because i was confusing overall frame of reference speed with damage done to the car.


EDIT 2: I feel like im going to have to keep adding qualifiers that in this case the wall is an immovable object that also takes no damage and 100% of the damage is done to the car. In a real life scenario some damage and movement to the wall occurs but have fun calculating that