When do airbags deploy?

Question

I have read they deploy when you actually make impact at a certain speed, and also they deploy when you rapidly decelerate...

Im pretty sure its the first one, anyone clarify?

Answer 1

They will not deploy if you deaccelerate rapidly. They will deploy in less than  .2 seconds.

Answer 2

There are many impact sensors for the air bags placed at specific areas of the vehicle when two or more are triggered at the same time the airbags will deploy with a predetermined impact, force!

Answer 3

DEFINITELY upon FRONT END, (Hard) IMPACT....Not just a simple, 'Fender Bender'!

Answer 4

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 5

Despite what the...AHEM...expert who answered above,  airbags do not have to have a "HARD" front end impact.  There have been several examples of airbags deploying with little to no impact (see the Ford focus recall from ford motor company, http://www.underhoodservice.com/us/ford....  This is not a rumor, this actually happens more than people think.  In fact, so many cars, everything from BMW's to Toyotas, eperience this that there's tons of research and recalls devoted to this issue (see http://www.anapolschwartz.com/practices/... ).  

Faulty airbag deployment has become a multi-million dollar industry for certain lawyers (http://www.carsafetylawyer.com/general.p... ).

To answer your question, airbags are supposed to deploy in any accident where there is front end impact with speeds of 20 mph or more, but as you can see from the data I have provided, this isn't the case always, or even most of the time.

for much more info, and more examples of good airbags gone bad, scroll to the bottom of this website (http://www.injuryboard.com/topic/airbags... to the "related topics" section.  Look at all the makes and models that show up here.  Shocking isn't it.

Answer 6

Its actually both.  They have deceleration meters in the front end of the car.  If they sense a sudden deceleration then the airbag deploys.  Rollovers and side impacts won't trigger the front airbags because the deceleration is not in the right direction.  On newer cars the computer will calculate if you are  their is a passenger in the passenger seat and only deploy that bag if someone is sitting there.  The side impact airbags work the same way.  Deceleration sensors.