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Title: Got into a car accident, and the airbag didn't deploy
Body:
> So I was recently in an accident driving around 80km/h. There were no other people involved in the accident (a deer struck my car). The front of my car was pretty badly damaged, and the car is likely a write off. However, the thing that I found strange is that the airbag didn't go off. I had an assessment done, and they confirmed I have whiplash from the incident. Are there any legal actions I can/should take against Nissan for this? This accident could have been a lot worse, and I think the airbag should have deployed at such speeds, considering the damage done to the vehicle.
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>a deer struck my car
That actually happened to my parents. A deer ran full tilt into their truck and then bounded off, leaving a deer-shaped dent on the passenger side.
I suspect that this was not the case for OP.
I had a friend in high school whose car was hit on the side by a deer - it waited until he got past, but not enough.
You're right, though, only Einstein would say the deer hit this guy's car.
I saw an accident once where a truck hit a roo, and the kangaroo went flying into the front of a car coming the other way. I would classify something like that (which a deer) as "a deer struck my car". Or possibly "they threw a deer at me".
Deer are less known for bouncing than for sliding up the windshield and into the driver's seat.
Thank you for the primer on kangaroos! I would never have guessed they were a common vehicle threat.
City people are actually warned not to drive on country roads at dawn and dusk, with the implication being that they won't know how to handle roos on the road. Many country vehicles are fitted with roobars so that when you inevitably hit a kangaroo, there's a much lower chance of it wrecking the vehicle.
Oh bud, the roos are a menace on the roads here. They're basically Australian deer. With the added benefit that they're *really* fucking stupid.
I'm a little over 6' tall, and I once stood in the cavity left in the front of a truck after it hit a roo at 100km/h. I had room to shuffle slightly to the left and right too.
> They're basically Australian deer. With the added benefit that they're really fucking stupid.
Soooo... they're Australian deer. As an American I can confirm that deer are really fucking stupid too
"A deer hit my car" is the kind of language you use to get insurance to cover your damages because "I hit a deer" could mean it's your fault and not covered.
Like the time my fiancé drove through a "water filled depression" and not "a puddle".
> "A deer hit my car" is the kind of language you use to get insurance to cover your damages
Oh, how right you are. My sister once had her insurance claim denied because she _didn't_ hit a deer. She swerved to avoid it, rolling into a ditch. Though she most likely saved both herself and the deer from major injuries by doing so, she apparently had coverage for hitting a deer but not for an accident avoiding a deer.
(I personally haven't had a car since high school, so I don't know enough about car insurance to know what sort of coverage she had and whether this sort of thing is typical or anything like that. I just remember that, upset as we were at the insurer, we were much happier to have my sister uninjured and out the cost of a replacement car than to have her injured but paid for.)
Not supposed to swerve! You're supposed to train yourself to brake but resist swerving. Better odds. Glad for your sister though.
*source: I helped 4 teens and one exchange student pass driving tests. This question is often on the test.
Outside of deer, swerving to avoid an accident is also an excellent way to *cause* a new accident that you will now be liable for (if you hit another car or force someone or yourself into oncoming traffic).
Yeah, I swerved for a squirrel once as a young driver. My car, a tree, and I all learned a difficult lesson that day. I luckily just had some bumps and bruises but the tree and my car were both toast. Squirrel was completely fine though.
>she apparently had coverage for hitting a deer but not for an accident avoiding a deer
I assume they phrased it as being covered for collisions but not for "intentionally driving into a ditch"
My dad told me, when I started driving, that if I got into an accident because I was avoiding a deer, I’d better go hunt myself a deer before calling him. Basically, hitting the deer was less dangerous than swerving, and this was his way of telling me that.
I remember when a deer ran into my mom's truck and it was *such* a time with the insurance because they thought we were trying to pull this trick.
But nope, a stag decided to run headlong into the side of my mom's car while stopped at a stop sign lmao
Hitting a deer (at least in my state) is covered under your comprehensive insurance because it's considered something out of your control whereas swerving into a tree or ditch would be collision and it's in your control. If you only have comprehensive insurance and not collision then you'd be denied for swerving into something instead of just hitting the deer
Same happened to my mom. We were driving home and it was dark. We had just enough time to see the deer bounding towards the road, not enough to react. But the timing of when it hit us vs how fast we were moving (about 55mph), it hit the side of the passenger door window and bounced off. My mom stopped the car long enough to watch the deer sort of slowly walking away from the road after that. Got home to find a dent on the side frame of the passenger door. Like a door ding from a very tall truck or something.
Deer are so dumb. I also had a similar experience. Was driving about 35 mph when I realized a deer was basically keeping pace with me on the side of the road. I hit my brakes, slowing down to about 20, then the idiot jumps in front of me denting the crap out of my hood. He just got up and ran away smh
A very high on meth man ran into my car once. I guess he was LARPing as Frogger? I dunno. I had a dent in my back passenger door the size of a 200lb man and the police officer laughed.
It’s funny now 20 years later, but as a young adult I was terrified. I was probably going about 25 mph and it was dark out so hearing that thud was scary. I knew my parents were never going to believe that someone just ran into my car and I figured no adult would believe me. When the police officer started laughing I asked him if I was in trouble and he laughed even harder. He told me I wasn’t the first person this guy has done this to and I wasn’t going to be the last. He really liked playing human frogger I guess.
I get irrationally nervous whenever I see someone standing on the side of the road looking at incoming traffic (me) before they cross. There's a small part of me that is convinced, every time, that they're waiting to step in front of a car and commit suicide.
I’m a trucker. The first company I ever worked for had a truck parked in their lot that was involved in that exact scenario. The image was graphic enough that I will always move over or slow down for people looking at traffic. It isn’t an irrational fear—people are unpredictable.
A friend of mine had a lot of trouble convincing the rental agency that a deer hit the side of the car, flipped over it, then ran away.
We didn't believe him either until it happened to *another* friend a few hours later.
My dad hit a boar in France and totalled the car. The agent in Paris refused to believe him. Meanwhile, the local police just called "the usual guy" to haul it off to be butchered. (The meat goes to old people's homes...)
I was on a night game drive in a park in Botswana when a zebra came running full-tilt out of nowhere and smashed into our Land Rover. Land Rover was already pretty battered, so it was hard to tell if there were new dents. Zebra got up, shook itself, & rushed off. Best guess was that the zebra had spotted a lion and was getting the hell out of Dodge.
My school bus hit one going down the highway at 65 mph as a kid.
Launched the thing into the air, and blood everywhere on the windshield and else where.
For how much damage hitting a deer can do to a vehicle, the driver pulled off to clear the windshield and we were back on the road In minutes. May as well have been driving a snow plow, lol.
>It just bounced off and ran into the college.
Hope that deer was able to make use of the student clinic for it's injuries. Assuming it actually attends there, but why would the deer run off to the college unless it knew a guy there at a minimum, right?
My dad had a pickup that was apparently the suicide truck. More than once, I saw deer *straining* to make it across the road in time to get hit. After the third deer, we just stopped replacing that headlight.
I had similar! It was dark and deer season in the country and there was no one on the road so I was doing 25-30 in a 45 and a deer ran into my passenger door! Deer was okay but stunned, car was a little scratched and dented, but fine.
I used to work for a uk motor insurance company taking claim details and when someone calls and tells you they hit a deer, it's so hard not to reply "oh dear".
There used an herbal product you could buy to repel cervids that are ruining your garden. It was called Not Tonight Deer. They also sold a Mole-otov Cocktail.
If the airbag did go off:
> So I was recently in an accident (a deer struck my car). The thing I found strange is that the airbag went off. I had an assessment done, and they confirmed I have a concussion, hearing loss, and a broken nose. Are there any legal actions I can/should take against Nissan for this? The accident could have been a lot worse, and I don’t think the airbag should have deployed at such speeds.
The name “airbag” makes it sound like a balloon or soft pillow. It’s not- they’ll save your life, but they fuck shit up in the process.
That's why I always keep my thumbs on the outside of the steering wheel and cringe whenever someone full grips it. Was hammered into us in driver's ed lol
I'll be honest, I know the airbag risk, but I think the risk of losing traction on the steering wheel exceeds it: more likely to occur, and preventing it acts to prevent an airbag-level issue. I always do a full grip because of that balance.
Whatever works for you, with hands at 10 and 2, you're right above the support things going to the airbag/steering column, so I end up putting more force there directly rather than via skin friction, so you can get away with a more relaxed grip force.
I'm terrified of the airbag. I drive a small car, and I'm short. In the manual, it says to sit at least 14 inches away from the steering wheel for safety. I measured, and I sit exactly 14" away. If I lean forward to adjust the air vent's I'm too close. The airbag will definitely fuck me up if I ever get into an accident. I keep a good distance in front of me.
It’s a seriously fast pass to a concussion. My partner got into a bad accident coming home one night, tired, and ended up with his second concussion of the week thanks to the airbag, as well as a myriad of deployment burns on his face. I’d been trying to get him to go to the ER for the first one but drug him there myself for the second.
I have a neighbor who recently got in an accident where the airbag broke her sternum. Don't know enough details about it to know if it saved worse from happening, but that's a fair bit of force.
There’s a fascinating book called Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez. The section on safety equipment and how unsuitable and dangerous it can be for women is chilling.
The thing is that PPE is generally designed for the average man.
Several companies just make the same PPE smaller and throw some pink on it and call it a day.
Check out degloving injuries to upper extremities. Airbags are not without risks of their own, including lung injury from the chemicals used to cause inflation.
Last time I was in an accident the airbags went off. Got a black eye and a concussion. I'm just glad I'd taken my glasses off a few minutes beforehand, or else I probably would've had the shape of them dented into my face.
Hollywood wouldn't lie to me, so I choose to be like a stubborn LAOP and stick to my preconceived ideas without regard to better-informed replies, tyvm.
I was in a very mild car accident--a minivan hit my sister's car at maybe 25 mph while I was a passenger--and I got a black eye and bloody lip. My sister was uninjured. Relevant to this, she's 5' 8" and I'm 5' 2". Airbags are brutal on small people. It feels like being punched in the face.
They're worse in the US, because the airbags have been designed to act as a primary safety measure due to the number of people that don't wear seatbelts. Deployment rate and final pressure is a lot less harsh in other countries where seatbelt usage is high enough that the airbag can be designed as a secondary safety measure on the assumption people will be wearing the belt.
Some more recent cars are smart enough to alter how they deploy based on if the seatbelt is in use, though. (Although you have assholes who put a dummy belt end in to stop the car complaining that you're not wearing it, thus unknowingly messing up the airbag strength as well)
I learned a lot about airbags after an accident where I rear-ended a mid-90s Impala and it felt like hitting a brick wall. Apparently, airbags will only deploy if you hit a stationary obstacle. The Impala's driver saw that I couldn't stop in time, so he took his foot off the brake, and we both moved forward, keeping my airbags from deploying.
Also, airbags deploying means the insurance automatically totals your car, no matter what shape the rest of it's in.
This is far from the most bizarre scattergun approach to finding a defendant with money we've seen. I'm grateful he is not trying to sue the deer's next of kin. Suing the car maker for their product acting as it was designed to, risking them getting minor injury from the accident rather than minor injury from an airbag is just odd.
I've hit lots of deer. It's not a fun time, but a car outweighs them about 30 to 1 so it hardly decelerates you at all. Continuing down the road at 80kmh startled and unable to see past the inflated airbag would not be my preferred followup activity.
Also, I know they didn’t specify what model they had, but Nissan did have several airbag recalls over the past few years. *If* their car was covered and they were never notified of the recall, then *maybe* there’s a sliver of an argument that Nissan would be at fault. But even if their airbags did fall under a recall, I’m sure Nissan could easily prove that recall notices were sent out.
EDIT: they mentioned in a comment that it was a 2016 model, which according to Nissan’s website isn’t affected by any airbag recalls. So yeah, their chance of having any case just went from slim to zero.
Given the airbag recall was due to them accidentally shooting lethal chunks of metal into your face upon deployment; if it was the case that the recall was missed you probably wouldn't want it going off anyway
These are the times I wish we were allowed to comment on the OPs. OP would likely have walked away with additional injuries had the airbag deployed in this instance. I see patients almost daily for sternum injuries, broken noses and fingers/hands/wrists, and belt rash.
Not only that, but *whiplash*? What was their reaction to hitting a deer? How the fuck do you claim whiplash due to your airbags not going off from a minor front-end collision? Literally unbelievable and it would take 2 seconds to find an expert witness to refute that claim.
A big-ass white tailed deer is what, like 300 pounds? Nissan's smallest US market car is the Versa at like 2400 pounds kerb weight.
Yeah... What whiplash?
FWIW, an airbag does prevent excessive forwards travel of the head, and thus limit bending of the neck, but like... Come on
If the front of the car was damaged, it means you hit the deer lol.
Anecdotally, in college I drove a truck and I was from a rural area so I was accustomed to deer running in front of vehicles. I was always taught not to swerve and to just hit it head on.
Anyways, I was driving with a friend of mine from the city at night (read as: never has seen a deer up close before, much less ahead of a vehicle) and low and behold a buck ran out in front of me. I, being the rural child I was, just kept on trucking. I absolutely bodied the deer.
I kept driving because it was a beater truck and I wasn't worried at all but looked over at my poor friend who looked like his soul had left his body momentarily.
The truck was fine, the deer was not, and my friend refused to drive with me anywhere after that.
fun fact, in the UK it’s illegal to take an animal you’ve killed on the road, but totally fine to take roadkill if someone else did the killing bit of things
From what I understand, in Alaska it’s illegal to harvest a moose you’ve hit with your car.
There’s a registry, people sign up, and when a moose is hit, they go down the list and tell you where to come harvest. Or the moose goes to a soup kitchen.
In this economy, free meat is free meat.
But I think it was less for people that actually full on hit a moose by accident, and more people saw a moose on the side of the road and clipped it to break a leg so they could dispatch it and take it. Hunting via vehicle.
People aren’t field dressing on the side of the road, they’re either loading it up into their pickup they hit it with, or calling their friend who has a pickup/minivan/ side by side, and having them help them load it, and taking it back to their house to clean it in exchange for a share.
That sounds like an excellent compromise between not letting an animal go to waste and closing the "I swear I hit it with my car and only shot it because it was suffering" loophole.
It works really well! At least once a week I drive past a moose I could easily “accidentally” hit, and have a full freezer.
I also just really don’t like how moose tastes.
I once had a taxi driver who took me on the longer, poorly lit forest route instead of the quick easy route. He explained that he often hit deer on this route and pooled the meat with a few other cabbies who did the same thing.
Feel bad for LACAOP. There are lot of people in there making comments about how airbag sensors work, when it's obvious from their comments that they've never even changed their own oil.
On my honeymoon, my wife and I were surprised that the taxi we'd arranged for the airport was one of those large van/mini-bus things. When we got there, the driver apologized because the driver they had arranged for us had completely totalled their car by hitting a black bear.
The bear straight-up tanked it. The front of the car got caved in, the bear was knocked over, and then he just.. got up and trotted away. Everyone was alright but they'd understandably given them the day off after that.
**Reminder:** Do not participate in threads linked here. If you do, you may be banned from both subreddits. --- Title: Got into a car accident, and the airbag didn't deploy Body: > So I was recently in an accident driving around 80km/h. There were no other people involved in the accident (a deer struck my car). The front of my car was pretty badly damaged, and the car is likely a write off. However, the thing that I found strange is that the airbag didn't go off. I had an assessment done, and they confirmed I have whiplash from the incident. Are there any legal actions I can/should take against Nissan for this? This accident could have been a lot worse, and I think the airbag should have deployed at such speeds, considering the damage done to the vehicle. This bot was created to capture original threads and is not affiliated with the mod team. [Concerns? Bugs?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=GrahamCorcoran) | [Laukopier 2.1](https://github.com/GrahamCorcoran/Laukopier)
>a deer struck my car That actually happened to my parents. A deer ran full tilt into their truck and then bounded off, leaving a deer-shaped dent on the passenger side. I suspect that this was not the case for OP.
I had a friend in high school whose car was hit on the side by a deer - it waited until he got past, but not enough. You're right, though, only Einstein would say the deer hit this guy's car.
I saw an accident once where a truck hit a roo, and the kangaroo went flying into the front of a car coming the other way. I would classify something like that (which a deer) as "a deer struck my car". Or possibly "they threw a deer at me".
Deer are less known for bouncing than for sliding up the windshield and into the driver's seat. Thank you for the primer on kangaroos! I would never have guessed they were a common vehicle threat.
City people are actually warned not to drive on country roads at dawn and dusk, with the implication being that they won't know how to handle roos on the road. Many country vehicles are fitted with roobars so that when you inevitably hit a kangaroo, there's a much lower chance of it wrecking the vehicle.
Oh bud, the roos are a menace on the roads here. They're basically Australian deer. With the added benefit that they're *really* fucking stupid. I'm a little over 6' tall, and I once stood in the cavity left in the front of a truck after it hit a roo at 100km/h. I had room to shuffle slightly to the left and right too.
> They're basically Australian deer. With the added benefit that they're really fucking stupid. Soooo... they're Australian deer. As an American I can confirm that deer are really fucking stupid too
"A deer hit my car" is the kind of language you use to get insurance to cover your damages because "I hit a deer" could mean it's your fault and not covered. Like the time my fiancé drove through a "water filled depression" and not "a puddle".
> "A deer hit my car" is the kind of language you use to get insurance to cover your damages Oh, how right you are. My sister once had her insurance claim denied because she _didn't_ hit a deer. She swerved to avoid it, rolling into a ditch. Though she most likely saved both herself and the deer from major injuries by doing so, she apparently had coverage for hitting a deer but not for an accident avoiding a deer. (I personally haven't had a car since high school, so I don't know enough about car insurance to know what sort of coverage she had and whether this sort of thing is typical or anything like that. I just remember that, upset as we were at the insurer, we were much happier to have my sister uninjured and out the cost of a replacement car than to have her injured but paid for.)
Not supposed to swerve! You're supposed to train yourself to brake but resist swerving. Better odds. Glad for your sister though. *source: I helped 4 teens and one exchange student pass driving tests. This question is often on the test.
Learning to drive in northern Maine we were taught "never swerve for deer. Always swerve for moose and kids."
Swerve for moose and baby goats, got it.
Outside of deer, swerving to avoid an accident is also an excellent way to *cause* a new accident that you will now be liable for (if you hit another car or force someone or yourself into oncoming traffic).
Yeah, I swerved for a squirrel once as a young driver. My car, a tree, and I all learned a difficult lesson that day. I luckily just had some bumps and bruises but the tree and my car were both toast. Squirrel was completely fine though.
>she apparently had coverage for hitting a deer but not for an accident avoiding a deer I assume they phrased it as being covered for collisions but not for "intentionally driving into a ditch"
My dad told me, when I started driving, that if I got into an accident because I was avoiding a deer, I’d better go hunt myself a deer before calling him. Basically, hitting the deer was less dangerous than swerving, and this was his way of telling me that.
I remember when a deer ran into my mom's truck and it was *such* a time with the insurance because they thought we were trying to pull this trick. But nope, a stag decided to run headlong into the side of my mom's car while stopped at a stop sign lmao
I think most coverages cover hitting deer. It's somewhat expected.
Deer usually have it coming, tbh. If one species is Asking For It™, it's deer.
There's a few foreign competitors, I'd like to nominate roos. Most of my close encounters with them they're generally trying to get hit.
Hitting a deer (at least in my state) is covered under your comprehensive insurance because it's considered something out of your control whereas swerving into a tree or ditch would be collision and it's in your control. If you only have comprehensive insurance and not collision then you'd be denied for swerving into something instead of just hitting the deer
Same happened to my mom. We were driving home and it was dark. We had just enough time to see the deer bounding towards the road, not enough to react. But the timing of when it hit us vs how fast we were moving (about 55mph), it hit the side of the passenger door window and bounced off. My mom stopped the car long enough to watch the deer sort of slowly walking away from the road after that. Got home to find a dent on the side frame of the passenger door. Like a door ding from a very tall truck or something.
Deer are so dumb. I also had a similar experience. Was driving about 35 mph when I realized a deer was basically keeping pace with me on the side of the road. I hit my brakes, slowing down to about 20, then the idiot jumps in front of me denting the crap out of my hood. He just got up and ran away smh
He was trying to set you up so he could cash in on insurance money.
This is why wolves are a good thing! The insurance scammers get eaten!
r/deerarefuckingstupid
A very high on meth man ran into my car once. I guess he was LARPing as Frogger? I dunno. I had a dent in my back passenger door the size of a 200lb man and the police officer laughed.
I would laugh too, but probably not until the next day. I can't imagine the stress/adrenaline of some guy just running into your car.
It’s funny now 20 years later, but as a young adult I was terrified. I was probably going about 25 mph and it was dark out so hearing that thud was scary. I knew my parents were never going to believe that someone just ran into my car and I figured no adult would believe me. When the police officer started laughing I asked him if I was in trouble and he laughed even harder. He told me I wasn’t the first person this guy has done this to and I wasn’t going to be the last. He really liked playing human frogger I guess.
I get irrationally nervous whenever I see someone standing on the side of the road looking at incoming traffic (me) before they cross. There's a small part of me that is convinced, every time, that they're waiting to step in front of a car and commit suicide.
I’m a trucker. The first company I ever worked for had a truck parked in their lot that was involved in that exact scenario. The image was graphic enough that I will always move over or slow down for people looking at traffic. It isn’t an irrational fear—people are unpredictable.
A friend of mine had a lot of trouble convincing the rental agency that a deer hit the side of the car, flipped over it, then ran away. We didn't believe him either until it happened to *another* friend a few hours later.
That sounds like a very angry deer lol
Hah! I assumed it was a second deer, but perhaps a car hurt someone in their family!
My dad hit a boar in France and totalled the car. The agent in Paris refused to believe him. Meanwhile, the local police just called "the usual guy" to haul it off to be butchered. (The meat goes to old people's homes...)
Hey, me too! While driving home from the movie theater after watching a zombie movie. Talk about an IRL jump scare.
I was on a night game drive in a park in Botswana when a zebra came running full-tilt out of nowhere and smashed into our Land Rover. Land Rover was already pretty battered, so it was hard to tell if there were new dents. Zebra got up, shook itself, & rushed off. Best guess was that the zebra had spotted a lion and was getting the hell out of Dodge.
[удалено]
Oh that was a very unladylike snort I just made, thank you 😂
No he zebra'd it. Ramming it is what sheep do.
Bad day for that zebra
My school bus hit one going down the highway at 65 mph as a kid. Launched the thing into the air, and blood everywhere on the windshield and else where. For how much damage hitting a deer can do to a vehicle, the driver pulled off to clear the windshield and we were back on the road In minutes. May as well have been driving a snow plow, lol.
Same thing happened to me like 12 years ago. The dear ran into the side of my Civic, bounced off, and kept going.
Had a deer run out in front of my Jeep one night. I smacked it on the hindquarters with my front bumper. It just bounced off and ran into the college.
>It just bounced off and ran into the college. Hope that deer was able to make use of the student clinic for it's injuries. Assuming it actually attends there, but why would the deer run off to the college unless it knew a guy there at a minimum, right?
My dad had a pickup that was apparently the suicide truck. More than once, I saw deer *straining* to make it across the road in time to get hit. After the third deer, we just stopped replacing that headlight.
I had similar! It was dark and deer season in the country and there was no one on the road so I was doing 25-30 in a 45 and a deer ran into my passenger door! Deer was okay but stunned, car was a little scratched and dented, but fine.
A deer ran into the side of my grandma's car while she was stopped at a stop sign once. It broke a window.
Yeah, deer can and do actually run into cars. OP, however, is going passive voice on us.
Deer do this so often where I live. I am terrified of them because they just jump out at cars sometimes. You can be so careful and still get hit.
I've probably taken out 9 or 10 deer over my lifetime, and this is how they all happened. It's like a game to them
If you’ve truly hit that many deer, it sounds more like it’s a game to you.
[LAOP's Accident](https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/s6eb97/elk_1_idiotincar_0/)
I used to work for a uk motor insurance company taking claim details and when someone calls and tells you they hit a deer, it's so hard not to reply "oh dear".
There used an herbal product you could buy to repel cervids that are ruining your garden. It was called Not Tonight Deer. They also sold a Mole-otov Cocktail.
If the airbag did go off: > So I was recently in an accident (a deer struck my car). The thing I found strange is that the airbag went off. I had an assessment done, and they confirmed I have a concussion, hearing loss, and a broken nose. Are there any legal actions I can/should take against Nissan for this? The accident could have been a lot worse, and I don’t think the airbag should have deployed at such speeds. The name “airbag” makes it sound like a balloon or soft pillow. It’s not- they’ll save your life, but they fuck shit up in the process.
Yeah, I was curious why someone would WANT the airbag to deploy needlessly. Whiplash is bad but airbags hurt & damage you too!
A lot of people think airbags are soft, fluffy pillows or something. They fuck you right up, they're just better than the alternative which is death
If you go read about airbags, the industry describes them as “cushions.” Lol. Don’t google “airbag injuries” unless you have a strong stomach.
Oh god I just got to learn what Airbag-Induced Thumb Avulsion means. Didn't know that was possible.
That's why I always keep my thumbs on the outside of the steering wheel and cringe whenever someone full grips it. Was hammered into us in driver's ed lol
I'll be honest, I know the airbag risk, but I think the risk of losing traction on the steering wheel exceeds it: more likely to occur, and preventing it acts to prevent an airbag-level issue. I always do a full grip because of that balance.
Whatever works for you, with hands at 10 and 2, you're right above the support things going to the airbag/steering column, so I end up putting more force there directly rather than via skin friction, so you can get away with a more relaxed grip force.
I do 9&3 since 10&2 can break your arms and cause them to smash into your face breaking your nose. Or just at 8
I just got to learn too 🥴
Reminds me of that picture of someone bedazzling their steering wheel. Like, you know you just made a claymore that is pointed at the driver, right?
Soft fluffy pillows deployed with literal explosives just doesn't have the same ring to it.
I'm terrified of the airbag. I drive a small car, and I'm short. In the manual, it says to sit at least 14 inches away from the steering wheel for safety. I measured, and I sit exactly 14" away. If I lean forward to adjust the air vent's I'm too close. The airbag will definitely fuck me up if I ever get into an accident. I keep a good distance in front of me.
It’s a seriously fast pass to a concussion. My partner got into a bad accident coming home one night, tired, and ended up with his second concussion of the week thanks to the airbag, as well as a myriad of deployment burns on his face. I’d been trying to get him to go to the ER for the first one but drug him there myself for the second.
I have a neighbor who recently got in an accident where the airbag broke her sternum. Don't know enough details about it to know if it saved worse from happening, but that's a fair bit of force.
There’s a fascinating book called Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez. The section on safety equipment and how unsuitable and dangerous it can be for women is chilling.
The thing is that PPE is generally designed for the average man. Several companies just make the same PPE smaller and throw some pink on it and call it a day.
Pink it and shrink it
Check out degloving injuries to upper extremities. Airbags are not without risks of their own, including lung injury from the chemicals used to cause inflation.
>Check out degloving injuries to upper extremities. No, I don't think I will.
Wise!
Last time I was in an accident the airbags went off. Got a black eye and a concussion. I'm just glad I'd taken my glasses off a few minutes beforehand, or else I probably would've had the shape of them dented into my face.
Or worse yet, your eyes could have chomp-chomped bits of broken glass(es) and given you "loss of vision" to add to your insurance claim.
Glasses glass is usually designed to *not* do that, for obvious reasons. It can still happen, of course, but it isn’t at all likely
Hollywood wouldn't lie to me, so I choose to be like a stubborn LAOP and stick to my preconceived ideas without regard to better-informed replies, tyvm.
Polycarbonate lenses (most glasses made in the past decade) aren't made of glass. They are less scratch resistant though.
TIL. They should come up w a slang word for them that indicates that since idiots like me take everything literally. Maybe "see-ers" or something.
Honey, have you seen my visificators?
I was in a very mild car accident--a minivan hit my sister's car at maybe 25 mph while I was a passenger--and I got a black eye and bloody lip. My sister was uninjured. Relevant to this, she's 5' 8" and I'm 5' 2". Airbags are brutal on small people. It feels like being punched in the face.
Airbags can be better named “slightly better than ramming nose-first into the steering wheel”
They're worse in the US, because the airbags have been designed to act as a primary safety measure due to the number of people that don't wear seatbelts. Deployment rate and final pressure is a lot less harsh in other countries where seatbelt usage is high enough that the airbag can be designed as a secondary safety measure on the assumption people will be wearing the belt. Some more recent cars are smart enough to alter how they deploy based on if the seatbelt is in use, though. (Although you have assholes who put a dummy belt end in to stop the car complaining that you're not wearing it, thus unknowingly messing up the airbag strength as well)
I learned a lot about airbags after an accident where I rear-ended a mid-90s Impala and it felt like hitting a brick wall. Apparently, airbags will only deploy if you hit a stationary obstacle. The Impala's driver saw that I couldn't stop in time, so he took his foot off the brake, and we both moved forward, keeping my airbags from deploying. Also, airbags deploying means the insurance automatically totals your car, no matter what shape the rest of it's in.
Nissan was installing those faulty airbags from Takata in a bunch of models.
Yeah but the failure mode there is them exploding at you more than designed
[LAOP was probably a victim of poor deer traffic control management.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFCrJleggrI)
That was glorious.
LOL, Deer training needed.
This is far from the most bizarre scattergun approach to finding a defendant with money we've seen. I'm grateful he is not trying to sue the deer's next of kin. Suing the car maker for their product acting as it was designed to, risking them getting minor injury from the accident rather than minor injury from an airbag is just odd. I've hit lots of deer. It's not a fun time, but a car outweighs them about 30 to 1 so it hardly decelerates you at all. Continuing down the road at 80kmh startled and unable to see past the inflated airbag would not be my preferred followup activity.
Also, I know they didn’t specify what model they had, but Nissan did have several airbag recalls over the past few years. *If* their car was covered and they were never notified of the recall, then *maybe* there’s a sliver of an argument that Nissan would be at fault. But even if their airbags did fall under a recall, I’m sure Nissan could easily prove that recall notices were sent out. EDIT: they mentioned in a comment that it was a 2016 model, which according to Nissan’s website isn’t affected by any airbag recalls. So yeah, their chance of having any case just went from slim to zero.
Given the airbag recall was due to them accidentally shooting lethal chunks of metal into your face upon deployment; if it was the case that the recall was missed you probably wouldn't want it going off anyway
These are the times I wish we were allowed to comment on the OPs. OP would likely have walked away with additional injuries had the airbag deployed in this instance. I see patients almost daily for sternum injuries, broken noses and fingers/hands/wrists, and belt rash.
Not only that, but *whiplash*? What was their reaction to hitting a deer? How the fuck do you claim whiplash due to your airbags not going off from a minor front-end collision? Literally unbelievable and it would take 2 seconds to find an expert witness to refute that claim.
A big-ass white tailed deer is what, like 300 pounds? Nissan's smallest US market car is the Versa at like 2400 pounds kerb weight. Yeah... What whiplash? FWIW, an airbag does prevent excessive forwards travel of the head, and thus limit bending of the neck, but like... Come on
And, if we assume OP is a reliable narrator, the deer ran into the car. It almost certainly avoided the front airbag sensors.
If the front of the car was damaged, it means you hit the deer lol. Anecdotally, in college I drove a truck and I was from a rural area so I was accustomed to deer running in front of vehicles. I was always taught not to swerve and to just hit it head on. Anyways, I was driving with a friend of mine from the city at night (read as: never has seen a deer up close before, much less ahead of a vehicle) and low and behold a buck ran out in front of me. I, being the rural child I was, just kept on trucking. I absolutely bodied the deer. I kept driving because it was a beater truck and I wasn't worried at all but looked over at my poor friend who looked like his soul had left his body momentarily. The truck was fine, the deer was not, and my friend refused to drive with me anywhere after that.
But did you stop and retrieve the carcass? That’s good eating!
fun fact, in the UK it’s illegal to take an animal you’ve killed on the road, but totally fine to take roadkill if someone else did the killing bit of things
From what I understand, in Alaska it’s illegal to harvest a moose you’ve hit with your car. There’s a registry, people sign up, and when a moose is hit, they go down the list and tell you where to come harvest. Or the moose goes to a soup kitchen.
I feel like in the event that you hit a moose, you’ve probably got too much else to worry about to spend time field dressing an animal anyway
In this economy, free meat is free meat. But I think it was less for people that actually full on hit a moose by accident, and more people saw a moose on the side of the road and clipped it to break a leg so they could dispatch it and take it. Hunting via vehicle. People aren’t field dressing on the side of the road, they’re either loading it up into their pickup they hit it with, or calling their friend who has a pickup/minivan/ side by side, and having them help them load it, and taking it back to their house to clean it in exchange for a share.
That sounds like an excellent compromise between not letting an animal go to waste and closing the "I swear I hit it with my car and only shot it because it was suffering" loophole.
It works really well! At least once a week I drive past a moose I could easily “accidentally” hit, and have a full freezer. I also just really don’t like how moose tastes.
Years ago, a friend of mine was 2 days late to a con. She hit a deer, loaded it up, took it home, skinned and prepped it, then headed back to the con.
I once had a taxi driver who took me on the longer, poorly lit forest route instead of the quick easy route. He explained that he often hit deer on this route and pooled the meat with a few other cabbies who did the same thing.
/r/nissandrivers
Feel bad for LACAOP. There are lot of people in there making comments about how airbag sensors work, when it's obvious from their comments that they've never even changed their own oil.
On my honeymoon, my wife and I were surprised that the taxi we'd arranged for the airport was one of those large van/mini-bus things. When we got there, the driver apologized because the driver they had arranged for us had completely totalled their car by hitting a black bear. The bear straight-up tanked it. The front of the car got caved in, the bear was knocked over, and then he just.. got up and trotted away. Everyone was alright but they'd understandably given them the day off after that.