Question about airbags...

[kbcouch]

My family was involved in a car accident on 12/24/12 and me, my youngest daughter and husband sustained some nasty injuries. We were traveling at 36 mph when someone turned right in front of us and we t-boned this other vehicle dead on. I had slammed on the brake for what it was worth, maybe slowing us down 1/2 mph. Questions arose regarding why the airbags did not deploy so we contacted Buick and gave all the information and they sent someone out to the shop where our car was being assessed for damage and did the SDM report. I received a copy of that report in the mail, don't understand it of course and then yesterday received a call from the representative saying that Buick has finished their analysis of our claim and it has been determined that the airbag system was operating correctly. But that they would like to offer us some compensation...they offered $500 each for my husband and I and $1,000 for my child that was hurt. I asked for a copy of the report and they said that it was owned by Buick and is proprietary info. I asked for specifics as to why they did not deploy and he started explaining about milliseconds and decelleration. I'm a little bit floored that this drastic of an accident does not warrant the airbags to deploy? By the same token, I am mystified at why would they offer compensation if they were not at fault..in this day and age, people just don't offer you money because they feel bad for what happened! I told the rep that I needed to discuss with my husband and my attorney and he said that if we feel this isn't enough compensation, to let him know what we feel is fair!!

[Bob Anderson]

Kimberly,

The decision to deploy or not deploy is complex. Injuries associated with airbag deployments themselves are usually minor, like arm abrasions, but occassionally involve injuries like arm fractures and corneal abrasions (eyes), and in rare instances serious and/or fatal injuries, especially for out of position occupants.

It is for this reason, that airbags must be designed and manufactured so that they do not deploy when there is not a net safety benefit to the occupants, and to only deploy when there is a reasonable chance to prevent or lessen serious/life threatening head and chest injuries. In other words, ideally, the airbag system should only deploy the bags when the risk of airbag related injuries is an "acceptable" trade-off for the chance to prevent other more serious and life-threatening head and chest injuries.

Assuming that the vehicles in your crash were equally weighted, the accident would be in the gray area between where an airbag deployment may or may not be desirable.

Because of the safety benefit of seat belts, if the driver and front passenger were seat belted, this would shift the decision towards not deploying airbags.

A frontal crash into the side of a car is typically "softer" than hitting a car head-on. Not to trivialize your crash, but the softer the crash, the less desirable airbag deployment becomes. This is not only because softer crashes are less likely to produce serious and life-threatening injuries, (assuming proper seat belt use) but also because it becomes more dangerous to deploy airbags after occupants have already started to move forward potentially into the path of the exploding airbags. So having a softer crash type would also tend to shift the decision toward not deploying bags.

The CDR report from the SDM should provide better details and myself and many other reconstructionists can help you understand the information it contains. Feel free to post additional information. Based upon the limited details you have shared about your crash, I would guess that a combination of being seat belted in a medium severity collision, that was soft into the side of a car provides an explanation for why the airbags did not deploy.

Besides some kind of cover-up, customer service would be another possible explanation for compensation being offered.