Cars have become safer than ever before and advanced safety features have certainly played a great role in reducing the occurrence of fatalities or serious injuries in dangerous road accidents worldwide. Car safety must be a top priority while choosing to buy a new car in order to ensure safety while driving in all conditions. While some car safety features have been launched recently and are new to the automotive industry, there are others like airbags, which have existed for a long time.
Airbags are considered as the most common and fundamental safety feature in the cars. Airbags in a car are basically specialized bags with a set of inflators, these inflators are designed to quickly inflate the airbags in the event of a serious collision between vehicles. The split-second inflation and timely deployment of airbags can save the driver and passengers from getting hit by any hard objects that can lead to facial, chest and head injuries. Airbags are critical to the safety of driver and passengers of a car as they minimize the risk of deadly injuries in event of an accident.
Composition and Working of Airbags
The airbags are composed of three basic elements, a thin nylon fabric, a set of inflators that inflate the airbags and a sensor that detects a collision and signals the inflators to inflate the bags. The nylon fabric is folded inside the door, seat, steering wheel or dashboard of the car while the inflation system pumps up the bag by using sodium azide, hot nitrogen gas, potassium nitrate when the sensor signals for inflation. The sensor is mostly electronic in nature and signals for the inflation if it detects a sudden deceleration of the car caused by a powerful collision. Airbags inflate upon receiving the signal from the sensors and act as “soft cushion” against which the human body’s momentum can be absorbed. In the absence of an airbag, the same momentum can be dissipated by hitting a hard object like a steering wheel, which can result in serious or fatal injuries.
How effective are Airbags?
Airbags are very important and their significance in improving the safety of car’s driver and passengers cannot be ignored. Airbags cannot really stop the occurrence of a dangerous road accident like some advanced safety features including Lane Assist, Forward Collision Control, Crash Avoidance System and Automatic Emergency Control, but they do save the driver and passengers of a car from serious facial, chest and head injuries. The airbags don’t only save the occupants of a car from being hit by flying objects from the outside but also make sure that they are not hit by the inner hard objects of the car in case of a deadly collision. The rate of fatalities has dropped in dangerous road accidents with the deployment of airbags. Drivers must always buckle-up while driving as the best advantage of airbags protection can be attained if the driver has buckled up. The chance of injuries further reduces when the driver and passengers use seat belts and don’t move too much in event of an accident.
How Many Airbags are Pre-Installed in a Car?
Different car manufacturers offer a different package for airbags in their cars. Some cars only come with airbags for driver and front seat passenger while some new cars also ensure the safety of passengers on the back seat. Cars that provide airbags for both front and rear seats are best as they ensure the maximum level of safety. For an instance, the 2017 Volvo XC90 features a total of 9 airbags for the driver and passengers combined, many other car brands are also focusing on installing maximum number of airbags in their new and upcoming cars to improve and ensure the safety of their cars’ occupants.
What if the Airbags Inflate Incorrectly?
The sudden inflation of airbags during an accident can also cause injuries to the occupants of the car but those injuries will be minor in comparison to the injuries sustained in an accident without the deployment of airbags. However, there have been rear cases where improper or hazardous inflation of the airbags led to severe injuries to car occupants and has also caused deaths in few incidents.
In 2016, the airbags of a Japanese company Takata Corporation were found as defective because of their susceptibility to heat and humidity. These airbags caused 16 deaths around the world, as the improper inflation of these airbags exposed passengers and drivers of the car to sharp objects flying out of the airbag assembly causing serious injuries and in some cases fatalities. This airbag defect was also a reason behind the world’s biggest vehicles recall which is still in its continuation. All major car brands have recalled their vehicles with Takata airbags so that the malfunctioning airbags can be changed. Recently, Toyota has recalled almost 40,000 of its vehicles from the UAE alone over faulty Takata airbags.
This incident corresponding to the airbags defect has occurred as a one-off thing and most of the airbags are safe and can play their primary role to protect passengers and driver from deadly injuries.
Also read: Toyota Recalls Over 39,000 Vehicles in the UAE
Importance of Airbags for Road Safety in the UAE
According to a research based on the importance of the airbags and seatbelts to reduce fatalities in road accidents in the UAE, the airbags and seatbelts together can reduce the risk of fatalities by 68%. The recently amended Federal Traffic Law in the UAE has put maximum emphasis on the use of seatbelts, which is a step forward in reducing the risk of death in event of a deadly road accident. Airbags are crucial to saving lives of motorists and this is why you will find the majority of cars on the UAE roads equipped with airbags.
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Image Courtesy: www.chevrolet.com
