A general air bag question

This morning a car pulled out in front of my sister in law and
husband. He didn't have time
to brake. He believes the two or three year old Avalon is totaled.
Everyone is OK, the sister in law was taken to the hospital for chest
pains. Probably due
to the seat belt.
My question is......... Not one air bag inflated. What would be the
reason for having no
airbags inflate when you hit something hard enough to total a large
vehicle other than
fraulty bags or sensors?

Pete E. Kruzer wrote:
> This morning a car pulled out in front of my sister in law and
> husband. He didn't have time
> to brake. He believes the two or three year old Avalon is totaled.
> Everyone is OK, the sister in law was taken to the hospital for chest
> pains. Probably due
> to the seat belt.
> My question is......... Not one air bag inflated. What would be the
> reason for having no
> airbags inflate when you hit something hard enough to total a large
> vehicle other than
> fraulty bags or sensors?

Sorry for the trauma to the family. I hope everything checks out OK
with the SIL.

There are certain criteria that the sensors must see. I don't know a
lot about this area, but I do know that the sensor must see a certain G
level purely in the fore-aft direction to trigger the bags. Any
component of the G level vector from the side doesn't enter into it.

--
Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

Unless there are side airbags, presumably...

Glad to hear that Peter's family ok; let's hope chest pain is temporary.

DAS

To send an e-mail directly replace "spam" with "schmetterling"
---
"Bill Putney" > wrote in message
...
[...]
>
> Sorry for the trauma to the family. I hope everything checks out OK with
> the SIL.
>
> There are certain criteria that the sensors must see. I don't know a lot
> about this area, but I do know that the sensor must see a certain G level
> purely in the fore-aft direction to trigger the bags. Any component of
> the G level vector from the side doesn't enter into it.
>
> --
> Bill Putney
> (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address
> with the letter 'x')