Which is safer?

[Milford Cubicle II]

If airbags posed a real threat they would not be in vehicles and they would not continue researching them and developing them. I think the people with all the correct research equipment and physics degrees probably know what they are doing.

Whatever, that's ridiculous.

 

[coldoath]

Whatever, that's ridiculous.

Ah yes, the finest of rebuttals. Hats off to you sir.

 

[Milford Cubicle II]

/sarcasm

 

[93xjcowboy]

If airbags posed a real threat they would not be in vehicles and they would not continue researching them and developing them. I think the people with all the correct research equipment and physics degrees probably know what they are doing.

You know thats not true. They research whatever they think will sell cars. If they can pass the tests (controlled exacting circumstances) then they will sell more cars.

 

[93xjcowboy]

For a certain range, the airbag can be very good, but outside of the realm it ranges from just an extra $3000 on the repair bill to dangerous.

This is exactly my point. They will help in certain circumstances but I have seen them hurt enough people to not like them.

 

[coldoath]

/sarcasm

lol iFail.

You know thats not true. They research whatever they think will sell cars. If they can pass the tests (controlled exacting circumstances) then they will sell more cars.

I would like to think you are joking, but I am afraid you're not. So I am sure they added seat belts just because they thought it would sell cars.

This is exactly my point. They will help in certain circumstances but I have seen them hurt enough people to not like them.

Anytime you walk away from a wreck you are damn lucky. When you walk away from an accident where an airbag just hurt you I would probably stop bitching and consider myself lucky.

 

[Matthew Currie]

If airbags posed a real threat they would not be in vehicles and they would not continue researching them and developing them. I think the people with all the correct research equipment and physics degrees probably know what they are doing.

I think it's clear from the record that airbags do pose some threat. We presume that the threat is statistically outweighed by the benefit, so it's deemed worthwhile, probably rightly so. But that does not mean there's no threat. And one of the reasons airbags must be so powerful and potentially dangerous is because safety standards require them to restrain an unbelted occupant. I'm sure that the engineers have worked very hard and done a splendid job of mitigating the dangers, especially in newer vehicles, but if your starting point is a device that must prevent a hefty grown man from being ejected in a frontal crash, there's just no way you're going to make that thing work gently! It's going to hurt someone.

We could go round and round till the cows come home about who should do what, who should pay what price, where the nanny state should or shouldn't come in, who absorbs the social cost of others' irresponsibility, and on and on, but the simple upshot is that we would hardly need airbags at all if everyone used seatbelts. If we still found bags necessary and cost beneficial, they would likely be less potentially injurious if they were designed with the assumption that drivers and passengers will use seat belts to prevent ejection, a job at which they work with proven efficacy, needing air bags only as a second line of defense against intrusion, loose objects, glass, etc.

 

[93xjcowboy]

lol iFail.



I would like to think you are joking, but I am afraid you're not. So I am sure they added seat belts just because they thought it would sell cars.



Anytime you walk away from a wreck you are damn lucky. When you walk away from an accident where an airbag just hurt you I would probably stop bitching and consider myself lucky.

No I was not kidding and no I dont. Seatbelts also dont blow up in your face.

This is the point where it becomes about opinion. I have mine you have yours. Lets leave it at that and move on instead of hasta

 

[Darky]

If airbags posed a real threat they would not be in vehicles and they would not continue researching them and developing them. I think the people with all the correct research equipment and physics degrees probably know what they are doing.

Kinda like the engineers with the degrees who designed the Pinto to explode in rear end collisions, the Yugo to be, well, a Yugo. Or that promote the child safety seat to be a necessary addition to keep kids safe, all the way to 60 lbs, even though independent crash test studies have shown that children past 2 or 3 aren't helped - or hurt - by the presence of a child seat.

 

[coldoath]

I think it's clear from the record that airbags do pose some threat. We presume that the threat is statistically outweighed by the benefit, so it's deemed worthwhile, probably rightly so. But that does not mean there's no threat. And one of the reasons airbags must be so powerful and potentially dangerous is because safety standards require them to restrain an unbelted occupant. I'm sure that the engineers have worked very hard and done a splendid job of mitigating the dangers, especially in newer vehicles, but if your starting point is a device that must prevent a hefty grown man from being ejected in a frontal crash, there's just no way you're going to make that thing work gently! It's going to hurt someone.

We could go round and round till the cows come home about who should do what, who should pay what price, where the nanny state should or shouldn't come in, who absorbs the social cost of others' irresponsibility, and on and on, but the simple upshot is that we would hardly need airbags at all if everyone used seatbelts. If we still found bags necessary and cost beneficial, they would likely be less potentially injurious if they were designed with the assumption that drivers and passengers will use seat belts to prevent ejection, a job at which they work with proven efficacy, needing air bags only as a second line of defense against intrusion, loose objects, glass, etc.

Airbags are NOT designed to replace seat belts in anyway. They are in fact designed as a supplemental restraint system, this is why you see "SRS Airbag" on the airbag. The reason they are so powerful is not because they are supposed to restrain an unbelted occupant but rather the reaction times required in an accident. The airbag is direct application of physics, it increases the time that you take to come to a complete stop.

These are some good links:
http://tristanmac.tripod.com/id8.html Explains the physics at a very base level.
http://www.indiacar.com/infobank/air_bags.htm

Kinda like the engineers with the degrees who designed the Pinto to explode in rear end collisions, the Yugo to be, well, a Yugo. Or that promote the child safety seat to be a necessary addition to keep kids safe, all the way to 60 lbs, even though independent crash test studies have shown that children past 2 or 3 aren't helped - or hurt - by the presence of a child seat.

Yes I am sure they 'designed' it to explode. So what's wrong with having a kid in a safety seat if it doesn't harm them? Would you not want to error on the side of caution when you are dealing with your child's life? Those comparisons were entirely irrelevant.

 

[MN-Cherokee]

Not sure, but my girlfriend was happy to come away with some broken ribs (among many other broken bones) vs. taking a sharp jagged edge of the hood that came through the windshield to the face. Everyone from the State Troopers, Fire Fighters, EMTs, and Doctors said she was lucky to survive and that the airbag saved her life.

98 Cherokee Classic, after a 100mph+ (55mph/55mph) combined head on hit with a semi.

Drivers door opening is about 10 inches shorter than normal. Roof buckled up, floor down, A pillar flattened. Dash is about 6 inches from the seat.

Not saying air bags dont hurt, even seriously sometimes. But I would rather be hurt and alive than dead...

 

[DrMoab]

98 Cherokee Classic, after a 100mph+ (55mph/55mph) combined head on hit with a semi.

Not trying to lessen the seriousness of that wreck...that looks nasty as hell but... 55+55 MPH only equals 55 MPH. Not 100 MPH as most people think.

Look it up, simple physics. If you hit a brick wall doing 55 MPH the impact will be the same as hitting another car at 55 MPH head on.

http://scienceblogs.com/dotphysics/2010/05/mythbusters_and_double_the_spe.php

 

[MN-Cherokee]

Yes, that is true. It was just the lingo the traffic investigator used. I realize the damage wont be worse. And it was basically a 55mph hit into a brick wall because Semi's do not crumple. The truck crossed over, hit the Jeep, picked it up spun it around and left it facing the opposite direction 30 or so feet behind where the accident actually happened. After the accident, the Trooper had the driver start the truck and drive it off the road. The fiberglass hood was toast, but the tractor's bumper was barely bent.

 

[Allof75]

Well this has been a very...interesting introduction into the forum.

I think I'll go, if I end up with an XJ, for the '95-96. Not because of the lower number of airbags (I think they actually help in an accident) but because I like the looks a little more, and I can trash it without as much worry.

Thanks.

 

[tbburg]

55+55 MPH only equals 55 MPH. Not 100 MPH as most people think.

Yep. Sounds intuitive 50 +50 = 100. And yep, it's wrong.

Mythbusters did an episode where they confirmed this. Ran a car into a wall at 50, then at 100, then ran 2 cars into each other at 50. The head-on looked exactly like the 50mph into a wall. here's vid of the head-on tests.

 

[5-90]

I take you aren't old enough to remember stories about kids getting their necks broke by the early airbag systems, or the old ladies that got hit in the chest so hard by the bags they they caused the same kind of heart attack that getting hit by a fast ball in chest would cause? Small stature people tended to be affected in the same manner as well. There have been improvements in body structure, the addition of good seat belts, steering assemblies that don't spear you chest in a frontal collision (ala GM), improved handling and braking, ect, but I'm not convinced on airbags or many of the electronic nannies yet either. When you have to limit who you place where in a vehicle, have to legally jump through hoops to disable a "safety feature" to keep it from killing somebody who is too small to be safely restrained by it, or receive injuries from said device in a wreck that you would not have received any injuries from otherwise, is that truly a safety feature? Some of what these "safety features" are supposed to protect against could be fixed just by making people behave like they're driving a 2 ton weapon, even if that means raising the punishment for distracted/intoxicated driving, having a real driving course at schools taught by competent instructors who actually understand car control and teach situational awareness (IE pay attention to what's going on around you and look as far down the road ahead of you as possible), maybe go so far as making the instructor take professional driving classes from someplace like Bob Bondurant, Roy Hill, Skip Barber, SCCA/NASA, the State Police, ect and making a national standard for drivers education programs too.

^^^ This ^^^

The single most effective safety device in a motor vehicle is a competent driver. The single greatest risk on the roadways is an incompetent driver.

I was taught to drive by people who impressed upon on these facts:
- You are in control of two tonnes of metal moving at high speed (maybe more!)
- You are responsible for damage caused by your vehicle or operation of it (this includes losing loads - which is one of my most major psychotic hatreds out here!)
- You are ultimately responsible for injuries to parties in both vehicles if you are at fault for a roads incident.

Plan, act, and react accordingly. (This is why we spent a week in Driver's Ed just on rigging and securing loads in a pickup truck properly.)

I honestly think that all of these "safety systems" have lead the increasing trend in roadway incidents, not followed it. The more "survivable" a motor vehicle incident becomes, the less work people are going to do to avoid them.

Kinda like the whole trend toward adding useless "creature features" as "Driver Assist Options" - which ultimately leads to, "Build a car any idiot can drive, and every idiot will drive one."

I, for one, don't want that many idiots on the road. I think we have too many people on the road in the first place - but if we were to rescind the licenses of the incompetent, we'd go a long way toward improving traffic safety and roadway congestion, as well as significantly reducing expenditures for roadway maintenance. However, I've expounded on that before.

 

[MN-Cherokee]

Not sure, but my girlfriend was happy to come away with some broken ribs (among many other broken bones) vs. taking a sharp jagged edge of the hood that came through the windshield to the face. Everyone from the State Troopers, Fire Fighters, EMTs, and Doctors said she was lucky to survive and that the airbag saved her life.

98 Cherokee Classic, after a 100mph+ (55mph/55mph) combined head on hit with a semi. (Edit- 100 MPH combined speeds. I realize and agree this is NOT the same as a 100mph hit.)

Drivers door opening is about 10 inches shorter than normal. Roof buckled up, floor down, A pillar flattened. Dash is about 6 inches from the seat.

Not saying air bags dont hurt, even seriously sometimes. But I would rather be hurt and alive than dead...

 

[heyhar]

To the original poster...If you think that the '95-'96 may be safer than an older model simply because they have air bags, I'll throw in my $.02. They are equipped with 'mechanical' air bags, not at all comparable with other electronic bags. My son has a '95, and he did battle with the front end twice, and both times would easily have set off a regular bag, but his has never gone off. I don't know what the threshold is, but apparently it's rather high.
Possibly, you should approach these two years as though they have no bags.

 

[CherBear]

Not trying to lessen the seriousness of that wreck...that looks nasty as hell but... 55+55 MPH only equals 55 MPH. Not 100 MPH as most people think.

Look it up, simple physics. If you hit a brick wall doing 55 MPH the impact will be the same as hitting another car at 55 MPH head on.

http://scienceblogs.com/dotphysics/2010/05/mythbusters_and_double_the_spe.php

Yep. Sounds intuitive 50 +50 = 100. And yep, it's wrong.

Mythbusters did an episode where they confirmed this. Ran a car into a wall at 50, then at 100, then ran 2 cars into each other at 50. The head-on looked exactly like the 50mph into a wall. here's vid of the head-on tests.

Yes and no:
You guys are over simplifying this...

Yes, a 50 + 50 /= 100 mph crash. That is assuming you are both driving cars of equal mass.
If you hit a semi going 50 and you are going 50, the semi wont have nearly the same amount of (de)acceleration as the car does.

Conservation of momentum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum#Conservation_of_linear_momentum

A 50 + 50 mph wreck would only equal 100mph IF the vehicle you were hitting were of infinite mass.

I can assure you that the jeep in the above picture expirenced a wreck far more damaging than hitting a wall at 50mph. Without doing the math, this wreck was probably closer to hitting a wall going 70 or 80 mph.

 

[MrShaft696]

Yes and no:
You guys are over simplifying this...

Yes, a 50 + 50 /= 100 mph crash. That is assuming you are both driving cars of equal mass.
If you hit a semi going 50 and you are going 50, the semi wont have nearly the same amount of (de)acceleration as the car does.

Conservation of momentum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum#Conservation_of_linear_momentum

A 50 + 50 mph wreck would only equal 100mph IF the vehicle you were hitting were of infinite mass.

I can assure you that the jeep in the above picture expirenced a wreck far more damaging than hitting a wall at 50mph. Without doing the math, this wreck was probably closer to hitting a wall going 70 or 80 mph.

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