Why would my airbags not deploy?

Question

i rear ended a car today going 50 mph, and my airbag did not come out. i drive a mitsubishi eclipse.

Answer 1

Because they didn't need to.

Answer 2

Air bags are only designed to deploy when you are going over a certain speed, and the deceleration is enough to warrant them being deployed.

If all that happened and they still didn't deploy then there is a fault in the system and it should be check out by the manufactures.

You can only sue the company if you received an injury, as a result of the airbag malfunctioning but remember to take pictures and do not let them fix anything until the insurance company as well as the dealers area zone manager looks everything completely over.

You can also contact the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration as well.

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/

Answer 3

They only deploy at certain impact levels. If your impact was at 50mph they should have deployed but I'm guessing that you were doing 50 before you hit the brakes. You probably got your car below the threshold speed before you struck the other vehicle.