<VV> Shoulder harness / Airbag (NO CORVAIR)

[NicolCS at aol.com]

<snip>My wife "tested" the airbag in her car.  It broke her eyeglasses in two 
and 
blew them into the back seat, and gave her so many facial bruises that for 
the next two weeks I was afraid I'd be arrested.<unsnip>

I'm sorry your wife was injured during her accident but her experience is not 
unusual.  In the process of stopping a body and the always unrestrained head 
from 35 mph (or whatever it was) in roughly 1/2 second, the forces involved 
are enormous. It's common to have a huge bruise from the shoulder harness on the 
chest and glasses can cause serious damage since they don't yield and shatter 
into sharp pieces.  However, the same impact distributed over 50ms in a 
concentrated area causes very serious damage. Internal organs burst during these 
sharp impacts with grave consequences so one has to count one's blessings and 
get on with the relatively minor injuries that did occur. AFIK, the only 
injuries that are "caused" by an airbag were in some early Chrysler designs where 
venting hot propellant caused burns on the wrists.

Like anything, there's a "best" condition for an airbag deployment, and that 
is:
Hands at 10 and 2, no glasses, seat upright, belt tight and low, and a single 
frontal impact.  As these factor vary, the airbag's effectiveness diminishes. 
 They aren't perfect but they almost always reduce a potentially grave 
situation to an upsetting, severe shock with relatively minor injuries.

I think I'll get back to happy thoughts now.  This subject is tough.
Safe driving to all
C. Nicol