News you can use: Everything you need to know, including affected vehicles. Including our 2000 323i. Actually, the driver airbag in the car hasn’t worked for years, because the seat sensor is broken. I guess its possible that if we take it in for the recall, they’ll fix that as part of the job, but I don’t want to pay to do it. I’ve never been a big airbag fan.
There are two approaches to safety: Preventing accidents, and mitigating the harm from them. Airbags are primarily for people who don’t use seat belts. I’ve never liked the idea of having ordnance in my dashboard. If I could order a car without them, I would.
It’s about perception, not reality. I say we get the nanny govt. to enforce a helmet law. /sarc
Can we just recall the windbags in congress instead?
Airbags don’t work worth a damn without seat belts; you just submarine under them. Back in the ’80s, when airbags weren’t mandatory but people like Nader and his puppet Joan Claybrook were gnashing their teeth over them, Road & Track did several articles on airbags, and accurately described all of the problems: danger to short people, burns from the hot gases, carcinogenic chemicals, disposal problems, and – not least – that they don’t work without seat belts! Truly a scam.
Eh, I kinda like having an airbag. Evidence does show that they do seem to reduce mortality and morbidity rates a great deal. But the price is the injuries received from the airbag itself in auto collisions that would probably otherwise just leave a couple of bruises. People have hands burned from the propellant or wrists broken from the bag deployment. If you wear glasses it is especially nasty if the bag goes off because the glasses will cut straight into your nose. I saw a lady being pulled out of her car from a wreck by EMT on the highway. The airbag was deployed and the sides of her nose were split wide open with blood gushing out. And the cuts were right were the bridge of the glasses rest. I got a speeding ticket and took a drivers edumacation class. They are actually telling you to stop using the 10 & 2 hand position on the steering wheel and instead hold it at a 7 & 5 position to prevent breaking your wrists if the air bags deploy. That way if the bag deploys it just slaps your arms down into your lap instead of cracking against your wrists laterally. They also told us to push your seat back as far as you can away from the steering wheel to maximize the distance from your face to the airbag. But at the extreme end of things they do in fact help a great deal. Not only statistically speaking but anecdotally I knew a coworker that was saved by an airbag. He was taking a left turn when he had the green arrow but someone from the opposite lane ran the red light and plowed right into him. He was wearing his seat belt and the last thing he said he remembered seeing was the car smashing into the front bumper and his body flying forward and then he blacked out. When he came to he saw the airbag was was laying in his lap and he got out and saw the whole front of the car was folded up into the engine compartment. In any other case that would have been serious head trauma but the air bag undoubtedly saved him from serious injury.
There is no “safety” this side of the grave. There is only risk management.