Most airbags are inflated by rapidly oxidizing solid rocket fuel. The gas formed during this process is mostly nitrogen, which already makes up almost 80% of the air that we breathe. The advantage to using this material is that it has a long storage life without "losing pressure". Most systems trigger this process electrically and the airbag completely inflates in about 30 milliseconds or 1/30th of a second.

Your vehicle's speed is of no concern to an airbag system. Its deployment sensors detect impact pulse and duration on most systems. Imagine that you were sitting still at an intersection and a vehicle crossed the center line and hit you head on. Wouldn't you want the airbag to deploy if the impact were severe enough?

There are many factors involved in answering this question. If the combined force of the impact was vectored to one side, an airbag deployment may not be appropriate since your bodily momentum carried you off center of the steering wheel. If there had been a deployment, you could have risked injury due to the "twisting" of your upper body when you contacted the inflated airbag.

The light on your instrument panel that indicates your automobile is equipped with an airbag is supposed to come on each time you start your car and remain on long enough for you to take notice of it. If it does not come on briefly after starting and then go out, there is most likely something wrong. If the light comes on or flashes while you are driving, there is most certainly a malfunction that needs to be corrected. Most airbag systems include a diagnostic computer that monitors the electrical integrity of your airbag system as you drive your car. If an electrical problem develops, it will store a diagnostic "code" that can help the diagnostician determine the cause of the problem in the shortest amount of time. This diagnosis is one of the services provided by Safety System Service, and since our service is mobile, often times this repair can be done at your place of work or residence with no inconvenience to you to "drop" the car off at a shop or dealership.

Yes! This is a significant portion of the type of repairs that we complete regularly. Often times the thieves or vandals damage other components in the instrument panel area or steering wheel and column. A complete inspection is needed to determine the extent of damage and which parts will be required to restore your car to pre-loss condition. Wiring connectors are often broken, wires cut, instrument panels gouged and plastic trim pieces scratched or broken.

These other website links contain information resources available to help you be better informed. They include subjects such as airbags, seat belt restraints, collision statistics, crash testing, comparisons of different model vehicles during crash evaluation and insurance company loss data.

www.nhtsa.dot.gov
This web site contains information from the agency responsible for airbag systems being installed in today's motor vehicles. This is the government agency that "makes the rules" that motor vehicle manufacturers abide by when they design and build vehicles. There are some excellent printed materials that can be ordered from this site.

www.iihs.org
This is the web site for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and contains statistics, loss data and fatalities as compiled by the insurance industry. They do independent testing of various makes and models of motor vehicles so that comparisons can be made to others in their class. Each individual manufacturer does crash testing of their own vehicles but don't typically crash test competitor's vehicles.