h a l f b a k e r yContrary to popular belief
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Would [yet another] airbag coming out from under the seat to fill the space under the knees, reduce the number of so-called "submarining" injuries? Must have been tried surely, but I searched without result.
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Hmmm, "submarining," haven't heard of that. Is this where folks end up under the dashboard? |
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Yes. With some very unpleasant results. The label is a deliberate euphemism perhaps. |
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I'm puzzled, then. Would the new airbag fill the space under the knees or the space in front of the knees? |
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An improvement and a problem. With passive restraints in place, have a sling from the console that covers the knees.
I haven't heard of 'submarining', but have heard of SEA (sudden elderly acceleration) as a cause of crashes. I'd see problems with any unexpected downward pressure on knees, especially if it forces a foot to the floor pedal. |
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The best answer is to provide air-bag suits for occupants of vehicles. In the event of an accident, the entire suit inflates, protecting you from everything except the voice of your wife, screaming that you're going too fast... |
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There's a growing problem with air bags: |
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They seem to be coming from EVERYWHERE in the car. Doesn't this mean you'll get hurt either way? |
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Proposal: No airbags. Only ejector seats & parachutes. With larger sunroofs. Problem solved. |
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Wes: Unless you crash while going under an
overpass... |
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Maybe have the underside of all overpasses lined with a metre thick piece of foam. |
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No...it'll give us somewhere to put all the now out-of-work airbags... |
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Why do we only have airbags on the inside of cars? |
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Wouldn't it make sense to have them on the "danger" areas of the cars? |
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You could install kevlar airbags for the outside of the car just above or below the headlights. |
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This might significantly reduce the amount of damaged incurred in an accident, especially low speed fender benders in the supermarket, etc. |
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<grins> Someone opens their door and dings your Metro's fender, and suddenly your car turns into the Goodyear blimp and floats away... |
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Most Volvo's have "anti-Submarining" seats installed. Somehow they engineered the seat to compensate for the inertia. |
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Tilting the seat backward a little, raising the front part, helps keep you from sliding out of the seat in a crash. |
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There was an active anti-sub seat a while back that lifted on tracks when you hit something...and slammed your head into the ceiling. Somehow, I didn't see this as an improvement... |
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«My truck has no crumple zones.» |
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That _doesn't_ make it safe. Sure, your truck may survive a collision, but if it doesn't crumple, Newton's Law says that you will remain travelling at the speed that your car was moving at before a crash, while your car will stop. This means that in an accident, you'll slam into the interior of your truck at high speeds. If the truck was of a modern design, on the other hand, it would crumple at the front and slowly decelerate, reducing the chance of serious injury. |
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[cp] Yup - I saw a news picture once of a crash between a big 1960's pick-up truck and a little '80's Honda. The Honda was wrecked, the truck was hardly dented; The Honda driver survived; the truck driver died. |
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It's entirely possible that [mp9man] also has no crumple zone. |
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mp9man cares not for personal survival, as his annotation clearly illustrates. As long as his truck survives, and his innards can be scraped from the dashboard, he would die happy. |
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Didn't someone once mention putting spikes in the middle of the steering wheel to encourage safe driving? mp9man's using the same principle. |
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(And unlike mp9man, I have comprehensive insurance, so if my car's totalled in a wreck, I don't care, as long as I get out ok.) |
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If I were the cause of an accident, I would care less about my own car, and my own injury-state, than I would about the OTHER person's car and/or injurious state. What good would it do me to walk away from an accident if I'm going to be sued into the poorhouse by the other driver and/or passengers? (again, this assumes that the accident would be at my fault) I guess another way of saying this is, "I'd rather be dead than hopelessly in the red."
Now, on-topic: if we're going to have airbags in cars, it makes sense to put one in the footwell. |
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The only viable "anti-submarining" mechanism that I've ever heard of was a special seat mount. The seat would slide forward from the inertia, and the mounts had inclined rollers (higher in the front) that reoriented the seat position. Thus, in an accident the seat would slide forward, changing the vector of thrust so that the driver is pushed down into their seat, and not under the dash. The front of the seat only has to be raised a couple inches for this to happen. |
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I think that a simple passive mechanical device, and not a complex sensor and airbag, are definitely the way to go. Cheaper, easier acceptance, probably just as, if not more, effective, and has that element of "Elegant Simplicity". |
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This is all ignoring the obvious solution that race drivers have used for years and years, which is 5-point and 6-point harnesses. |
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