quote:

Originally posted by 12GA:
T-boned a sedan at 55 mph that ran a red light and walked away with just some soft tissue injury. The front air bag in my Dodge pickup kept me from slamming into the steering wheel or worse. Yes, they work.

My wife (girlfriend at the time) had a similar experience. She T boned a pickup truck at 50mph that ran a 2 way stop. She didn't even have time to hit the brakes as there were no skid marks on the road. The impact pushed the pickup and rolled it into the ditch. Everybody walked out with minor cuts and bruises. She was in a Ford Escape and the air bag worked is it was supposed to though the docs determined she has about 10% brain damage from the accident.

Back in 2000 I had a head on collision in my Camry. I was doing ~40 and the dumb bitch who crossed into oncoming traffic was doing about the same. The impact was precisely head on for both vehicles. My airbag deployment prevented me from striking the steering wheel. I was bruised, peppered with glass shards, and shaken up, but had no broken bones or internal damage. The impact was so violent that it wrinkled the ass end of my Camry, pushed the engine and transmission back, and clamped my feet to the firewall. All in all I was lucky as hell.

My older sister was, at 17 (well, that and being in a giant vehicle). She was coming back to a horse show after a soda run for the group. An 18 wheeler had a blowout and hit 2-3 other cars (you'll have to forgive me as it was over 18 years ago), my sister being one of them.

Truck blew a tire, trucker lost control, went sideways on the highway. Hit at least one other vehicle - a small Honda where the driver was killed because it went under the trailer (my understanding is that she never had a chance) - and knocked my sister and the Excursion she was driving rolled 3 times. She got off extremely lucky - some bruising, maybe a few superficial cuts, and an extreme distrust of anything smaller than an Expedition that's continued to this day. No broken bones or other major trauma. Car was totaled as the frame was bent and the engine moved, but all of the safety systems worked perfectly.

I personally have been in a number of scrapes, though thankfully none of which have been bad enough to pop my airbags. I'm thankful, as my car was part of the Takata deal, and while I took it to the dealership and they supposedly replaced the airbags I'm still getting mailers saying "URGENT SAFETY WARNING: REPLACE YOUR AIRBAGS." So I need to get on them and get it rechecked.