Compressed foam balls, laced with the usual sodium azide, potassium nitrate and silica dioxide, mounted in a number of layers in the ceiling (headlining) of the passenger cabin and wired with a grid of initiators.
Experience an accident hard enough to trigger the airbag and the cabin of the car fills practically instantly with nerf balls too big to swallow.
Open the doors and they pour out of the car, in similar fashion to those sometimes seen coming out of circus clowns' cars.-- UnaBubba, Aug 23 2013 Ubie!-- MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 23 2013 Hi Bubba-butt. This sounds better than those existing nasty airbags. They are brutal on the body.-- blissmiss, Aug 23 2013 Aieeee ! Run ! Run for your lives, and don't look back !-- 8th of 7, Aug 23 2013 And the displaced air formerly occupying the space in the car does what...-- RayfordSteele, Aug 23 2013 [Rayford] surely the same activating sensor can be used to open a venting duct large enough to prevent pressure build up.
[UnaBubba] equally imaginably hilarious as it would be practically useful; genius (+!).-- acurafan07, Aug 23 2013 If action movies have taught me anything it's that current air bag designs allow continued vehicle control after the collision. Perhaps this idea could be for level 2 collisions, in which the computer decides that continued vehicle control would be useless. Anyway, have a bun.-- the porpoise, Aug 23 2013 Cool.There was a Sci.Fi movie which had the entire vehicle fill with an instantly hardening foam that they had to free themselves from after a crash, but I can't remember which movie it was from. (+)-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 23 2013 That wold be Demolition Man.
acurafan, that vent would probably need to be something on the order of expelling the roof, which I recommend against.-- RayfordSteele, Aug 23 2013 A simpler solution would be a bolt-gun set into the headrest, which is activated by any serious collision. If you think about, instantaneous death is no problem at all, because the world just stops existing. The only reason for having airbags is to prevent painful or debilitating injury, not death.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 23 2013 oh, no, now I'm depressed... I thought killing UnaBubba was a video game...-- po, Aug 23 2013 A system could be devised for motorcyclists with the foam erupting from the front of the seat, lightly held together with Post-It glue. Even if it didn't work it would make a beautiful mess.-- Alterother, Aug 23 2013 The air compression pops out the windows, [Rayford], as you are probably capable of imagining, given your occupation.-- UnaBubba, Aug 23 2013 Of course. Any compressive shockwave of this size probably would. I just don't think I'd want to be sitting in the middle of it at the time.
But I'm not here to be a buzzkill, just thinking out loud.-- RayfordSteele, Aug 24 2013 Oh, it would be out loud when it went off, I'd imagine.-- UnaBubba, Aug 27 2013 You're just a frustrated Bond villain really, aren't you, [UB] ?-- 8th of 7, Aug 27 2013 random, halfbakery