How fast would you have to be going for airbags to deploy?

Question

I have a 2 door copue 1994 Camaro. The other night it was raining, and I was driving on an oily road, I came around an s turn, coming out of the turn my tires broke loose and started spinning. *Note* I was doing maybe 5 miles over the limit which is 25. But I ended up careening into a ditch and slamming into a shed. Now the cops say I wasnt going wreclessly fast, because if I was the air bags would have deployd, yet I still have skeptics who think I was speeding. So does anybody know the average speed for an airbag to deploy in a mild collision?

Answer 1

Wouldnt matter, depends on the censors of your vehicle.

Answer 2

Air bags can go off anytime. If you are out of the car and parked if someone hits you your airbags will deploy because the sensor will still sense the impact and the airbags will deploy. if you hit an object like a pole or tree if you are accelerating over 40 mph your airbags will deploy. the airbags wont really break any of the impact if you are not wearing your seatbelt so you would go right through the windshield. Safe driving.

Answer 3

look under the front of the car and you should see the sensors for your airbags

if those sensors are not hit then the airbags wont deploy

they  are designed to deploy only in a hard collision

Answer 4

Airbag deployment has nothing to do with how fast you are going, has everything to do with how fast that you stop. I knew a guy driving a Dodge pick up, hit a telephone pole at 50mph. The pole snapped, pushed in the front of the truck, the truck was still drivable, and the airbags didn't deploy. The man was uninjured. The reason the bags didn't pop was because the pole didn't stop the truck. When you careened off of the road and slid into the shed, you didn't stop suddenly.

Answer 5

Generally they deploy around 40 give or take.

Answer 6

Good question.  An important point.

People have been killed at 25MPH.

Answer 7

I have been a witness to two accidents in my life.... One was a BMW, stopped waiting for traffic to clear so they could make a left turn, when another vehicle came around a curve, lost control and slid sideways into the front of the BMW at about 50mph.  The Airbag popped in the BMW and the driver walked away without a scratch.  Unfortunetly, the driver of the other vehicle didn't have his belt on and did not survive the collision.

The other one was a new Toyota Camry.  The driver fell asleep at the wheel and drifted into the median at 65mph.  The jolt of driving off the pavement woke her up and she yanked the wheel to get it back on the road.  The front tire dug into the soft dirt and caused the car to flip, end over end and come back to rest on it's wheels.  It bent every piece of sheet metal on the car, but there was no impact to the bumpers.  The bags never deployed.  The driver wasn't hurt, but the car was a total loss... and it only had 1048 miles on it.  This happened to my mom and after the accident, I questioned the lack of Airbag deployment.... I was told by Toyota (who I worked for at the time) that because she didn't apply the brakes and the car had no damage to the bumpers, the bag sensors did not detect the threat and deploy.  

I don't think there is an accurate answer to your question.  Every scenerio is going to be different and will determine if the bags deploy or not.  

I'm glad you were unhurt.... the car can be repaired or replaced...

Good luck in the future...

Answer 8

It isn't the speed of the vehicle, it's the rate of negative acceleration and angle of collision that causes deployment. So, YES -- you could have been going 120 mph and the airbags may not have met enough criteria to deploy.

Answer 9

Jason is right, but it also depends on the point of impact. The airbag sensor is placed slightly different on each vehicle. If you don't hit the sensor the airbag will not deploy.

Answer 10

I have seen them pop when cars are going 10 miles +.

I guess it depends on the car and the system, it also depends on the point of impact.

Answer 11

Depends on how hard you hit something.

Answer 12

you could be in a none moving vehicle that was hit , I  think it is 10 mph

Answer 13

It all depends on what the sensor pick up. It could be 20 MPH. it could be 50 MPH

Answer 14

Airbags deploy only when they might be needed to prevent serious injury.

Frontal driver and passenger airbags are designed to inflate in moderate to severe frontal crashes equivalent to hitting a solid barrier at 10-12 mph.

Some manufacturers use different inflation thresholds depending on whether people are using their safety belts.

Thresholds of 10-12 mph typically are used for unbelted occupants, but thresholds are higher — about 16 mph — for belted occupants because the belts alone are likely to provide adequate protection up to these moderate speeds.

Answer 15

mines went of at 7 miles a hour

Answer 16

airbags are set to deploy when you bump the front of the car, mild collision could still result into injury.

Answer 17

pretty fast.. I rearended a car recently 10-12 miles per hour and mine did not go off.. that is a good thing.

Answer 18

I believe 20 or so...

Answer 19

The purpose of an air bag restraint is to decelerate the occupant during a crash and absorb energy, and reduce the potential for impacting passenger compartment strike hazards (e.g., dash, doors, windows, steering wheel). It will usually activate during a crash greater than 10–15 mph.

Second generation air bag systems utilize addition sensors to determine the location, weight or relative size of the occupant. This information is used by the crash sensor to control the performance of the air bags. This determines whether to be deployed at a high-force level for adults or at a low-force level for children. It may not even be deployed at all, depending on the severity of the crash.

This information is received to the air bag via the accelerometer. Many vehicles have several accelerometers within the vehicle. The different signals from these accelerometers are fed into a dedicated microprocessor which calculates the angle of impact as well as the deceleration and force of this impact. Depending on the result of these calculations the microprocessor will send one or several signals to activate in turn one or several air bags.

Answer 20

About 30 mph

Answer 21

I agree. I have been in an accident at very slow speed and my airbag deployed too, it has to be a sensor that detects the body of your car is crushing. Call your car company and ask for the data, go to court and fight it.

Answer 22

According to a helpful FAQ from the Automotive Occupant Restraints Council, airbags deploy as a result of a simple but powerful chemical reaction. When your car is involved in a frontal collision with an object while traveling over twelve miles per hour, a motion sensor sends an electrical shock to a small capsule of sodium azide powder, which instantly turns into inert nitrogen gas.

This gas fills a lightweight nylon bag, which pops out of a latched panel and covers your head and upper torso. Mind you, this all happens very quickly. It takes about 30 milliseconds for an airbag to deploy, while it takes 100 milliseconds to blink. Airbags start deflating within a second of their release.

So I don't think it has anything to do with speed, it';s a frontal collision that causes it to deploy!!!

Answer 23

air bags can deploy at any speed...if you were to do something wrong to your car even sitting still they could deploy

Answer 24

Honestly, the airbags don't deploy at a certain speed. Somebody tapped my mom's minivan at 5 mph in a parking lot and her bags deployed.

Answer 25

Thats interesting. I will stay to see for the final answer.