Well first of all, you can guess who won. The S2000 did put up a good fight by moving the pole a good six inches but in the end, the pole was victorious. But here's the question. I hit it at around 30 mph (via state troopers guesstimates) in the dead center of the front bumper and the airbag didn't go off. The pole went almost all the way to the engine and did about 8500 worth of damage. Any guesses why it didn't go off. And fyi, I'm ok, just a little shook up about it all and a little upset about the airbag not going off.

 

That's really strange. It shoulda came off by the sound of it, especially for a frontal impact like yours. Did you buy the car used? Maybe the last owner turned it off somehow without telling you.

 

How did you hit the pole?

 

This is from Discovery Honda Web site (http://discoveryhonda.com/safety2.html):

"By now you know that airbags are designed to deploy in a severe frontal collision with another vehicle or a solid object. But did you know airbags can also deploy if you hit a pothole or a raised object, they may or may not deploy if you crash into a pole or tree, and they rarely deploy if you under-ride another vehicle?"

If you go the web page they kind of explain why Airbags go off in some situations and not others. Hope this helps.

 

Good to hear you are okay!!!!

In principle, the airbag is there to aid with the prevention of severe injuries. One should not consider an airbag to be a 'separate device' anymore, because it acts in conjunction with the seat belts. Since you were not injured, this particular additional aid was not necessary in this case and therefore the restraint system has actually worked perfectly the way it should.

In some cases with low-deceleration accidents with airbag deployment it can do more harm than good. This is because of the timing of the person moving forward rather slowly, and the airbag exploding out the steering wheel all of a sudden which can punch the occupant back violently and cause serious neck-bending injuries. Also there could be abbrasion of skin and burning of the occupants skin due to the hot explosion gasses.

As mentioned, rather than hitting another car or wall with a big area overlap and high deceleration values as a result, the pole 'travelled' a very large distance related to your car, which causes relatively low deceleration values, not triggering the airbag.

Take care!!


Siepel

 

To make a long story short, someone pulled out in front of me, I clipped them and spun right into the pole, located about ten feet off of the road. It hit the dead center of the front bumper though.

 

Oh, and i bought the car new, it's a 2002 with almost ten thousand miles on it.

 

That's REALLY weird!!

I'm extremely pissed about my car, then. I was on a hillcountry drive with some other S2k's, and crested a blind hill... The road dropped straight down and I was looking down into 3 S2k's sitting stopped at the bottom of the hill... I was doing maybe 45mph when I crested the hill and stood on the brakes. I knew I couldn't stop in time, so I bailed to the right of them into the dirt... I took out a flimsly little stop sign with BREAKAWAY BOLTS and my airbags went off! The impact was JUST right of center, and was not even a hard impact at all. My seatbelts were unusable after that -- the pretensioners locked themselves. Be thankful the airbags didn't go off... The cost to replace the airbags, tensioners (seatbelts, too), and sensor is over $3k. The rest of the damage to the car was far less than that... the sign didn't even TOUCH my hood, except up near the base of the windshield where the top part of the sign fell down and hit the hood up higher. *grumble!*

 

Consider yourself lucky last guy that hit a pole landed on the steps of St. Ambrose parish.

 

Just a quick update, i just got back from the body shop and they said the frame rail was damaged so they are going to have to take out the engine and transmission to fix it, which makes the total now between ten and twelve thousand. They still can't figure out about the airbag though. I'm only 20 and still live with my parents and dad is going to get involved so hopefully he will figure out why.