Grannies and Airbags | Thread profile

Not sure if this video is real or faked, but it's pretty funny. Would a well-placed kick do the same thing? Something to keep in mind for future commutes

Ford Mondeo's in the UK had a mass recall when they were first released. A well placed high speed kick to the center of the front bumper would fire the airbag and unlock the doors even whilst the car was stationary and parked with no ignition on. Though you'd have to really really kick it quite hard (excess of 15mph I think). Lead to a spate of thefts and I believe it was reported on Watchdog (...

I worked for a while on a circuit that would control airbag firing - this was many years ago, but the issue that they had was a series of accidents where a car would jump a curb before hitting a building, the impact of the curb would fire the airbag, which would then have deflated when the impact of the building took place. The concept of our circuit was to wait to fire the airbag until there was...

Seems to me the airbag wouldn't go off if the car wheels were not moving. Heck, I think they don't go off until the velocity is over some lower bounds. Don't need airbags going off at low speed fender benders such as happen in parking lots. The computer knows how fast the car is going. There can be malfunctions. The anti-lock brakes on my Chevy truck have an issue with detecting speed. Part of ...

I think it's quite obvious that the video is a spoof, but it's very funny nonetheless. Airbags inflate with an almost explosive force. I imagine getting them to go off when needed is a very complicated proposition. You can't rely on measuring MPH via wheel-spin because many accidents involve the wheels locking up -- thus they aren't spinning at all upon impact. Do they use accelerometers to ...

If the airbag doesn't go off when the wheels aren't moving, then when somebody drives into the stationary traffic at 40 mph, you're hosed. Exactly that happened to both my cousin, in Maryland, and a lecturer I had at college. In the lecturers case, it was a truck that hit his car as he waited at lights. Fortunately for him he drove a Volvo! Anyhow, I'm sure they work when stationary, and if not,...

Fake, Fake, Fake! An airbag also deploys some gases and powder. It also deploys at a much faster rate than what was seen in that video. How about this airbag? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx8KN...&search=air bag