Airbags in cars, who wants or needs them?

[Ty]

The airbags are activated in some 10-20 ms, no way you could have enough time to raise your hands.

Or do you mean letting go of the steering wheel prior to the crash? I can't really imagine that, since you'll always steer in order to (try to) avoid the crash.

Sorry, I meant for passengers and that they will know before impact really occurs that one is about to. Therefore instinctly they raise their arms BEFORE the impact actually occurs and when it does, the airbags knock their already raised arms/hands into their face.

Again, just what I read sometime ago. /shrug.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Given that you didn't wear your seat belt at the time, you should be happy your car did *not* have an airbag...

That wasn't what I was thinking when they were stitching my right eyelids back on.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

In all cars I know, the pressure sensor is used just to detect if someone's in the passenger seat and to produce a warning if the belt isn't plugged in, while the aforementioned switch is used to deactivate the airbag if the child seat is detected. Just curious, what are you driving?

I drive a normal entry-level Toyota (just over a year old, though). And indeed, I have put weight below the threshold of activation in the front seat and it will still turn the airbag off. When I've put heavier things like luggage in there and used the belt to keep the car from complaining, it gives me a little light saying "Smart Airbag Pressure ON." And like I said, my thinking is that it's actually something more crude than some clever programming.

Sorry, I meant for passengers and that they will know before impact really occurs that one is about to. Therefore instinctly they raise their arms BEFORE the impact actually occurs and when it does, the airbags knock their already raised arms/hands into their face.

More often, I think I've seen that people seem to have the habit of locking their elbows and pushing themselves away from parts of the dash (in the case of the driver, the steering wheel, usually).