Dumb safety devices

Mercedes showed a new safety vehicle at the D.C auto show, some of the "innovations" are really stupid.
Pre-Safe pulse - an air bag or something that nudges occupants toward the centerline of the car just before a collision.
Outcome: Every accident results in a three stooges like head knock. Sparing helmets will become manditory in every car by 2018.
Seatbelt airbag: Doubles its width in a fraction of a second to spread out forces from the seatbelt.
Outcome : Burns on the torso.
Interseat protection : An airbag that pops a curtain between occupants to prevent the three stooges head knock from the lame Pre-Safe Pulse.
Outcome : Broken arms (because they were changing the radio station at the time of the accident) and super-sized drinks, cell phones, and pretrified french fries ripping through the car at super sonic speeds from the blasted interseat air bag.
The dumbest one of all:
Braking airbag : And airbag in the vehicle floor that deploys just before a crash, stabilizing and decelerating the car by inflating against the road.
Outcome : Carnage. If the air bag puts enough pressure on the road to slow or stop the car, will the tires have enough contact pressure to stop and control the car?

Seriously, these things,especially the last one sound just plain stupid. Wouldn't it be cheaper to teach people how to drive a car so they can avoid most of the accidents that do happen? Makes me lose even more respect for engineers.

they need a big airbag in the front and rear of the car to cushion the blow BEFORE the cars hit

DrBoost wrote: Makes me lose even more respect for LAWYERS.

Fixed

how can there be any less respect for lawyers....?

And here I thought retracting seat belts built into the doors (with the usual weak suck motors that stop working) was the dumbest thing I'd seen.

I don't know, I actually like the airbag pointed down at the road idea. If they make it strong enough maybe it can just launch your car over the car you were about to hit.

Just don't get into any accidents underneath power lines.

Golly Gosh Batman, Thank Goodness we had the BatBag under the Batmobile when the Joker ran the red light!

Soon they'll just outlaw cars and make us walk. It's safer and 'greener'

Nothing is as lame as Lexus's park assist system. ....

btw, other result of all these airbags:

an accident that results in $1k in front-end body damage will actually end up totalling your $50k Benz, since the 26 airbags that will deploy in this 20mph rear-ender will run about $1500/each to replace....

I like the idea of the ground airbag....

Flat tire? Trigger the AB for a quick tire change

High centered in the snow? Fire the bag to compress the snow, then let the air out and you'll have clearance...

Parallel parked with cars right on your bumper? Blow the bag and then just spin your car on the central pivot

I just counted - on my 750Li there are at least 10 airbags. The traditional driver and passenger dashboard bags, knee airbags for driver and passenger, side impact airbags for all 4 doors, and curtain airbags for each side. Add in 5 seatbelt pretensioner pyro charges and there's a lot of explosives I'm hauling around, and a big repair bill if they all fire. Of course, if they all fire I'm sure I'll be glad they're all there...

Ford already has the seatbelt airbag and is putting it into the next update of the Exploder among other vehicles.

I'm waiting for the fun of hood airbags for pedestrian protection. How hard will it be to "pop" the hood to do some work without "popping" the hood?

In reply to pigeon:

Hell, my $25k Subaru has 8 airbags, I believe....

How about removing passengers from the crash altogether like the fighter planes do ?

DrBoost wrote: Makes me lose even more respect for engineers.

Since you are ASSUME the results.....

Nice to know we are in such high standing with you.

E-

DrBoost wrote: Makes me lose even more respect for engineers.

Mmm. Since you didn't understand how much of it works, no great loss.

The side protection and interspaced bags work together. There's none of the three stooges knocking around you cobbed up. That's about as real as the fear of getting knocked into the back seat from a front air bag.

No burning from the inflatable seatbelt. That one's kinda nice to deal with peoples habit of leaving the shoulder strap too loose. Lots of folks hurt themselves because they leave the belts too loose. Volvo has a different approach, using explosive fired seatbelt tensioners.

The braking airbag is in interesting concept. Nice to help keep your car from nosediving under an SUV. This one deals with that problem. Guess you missed that too. It ain't gonna cause carnage by lifting the car off the tires, not that it would matter if it did, it provides plenty of friction.

alfadriver wrote:

DrBoost wrote: Makes me lose even more respect for engineers.

Since you are ASSUME the results..... Nice to know we are in such high standing with you. E-

What?

DrBoost wrote: Wouldn't it be cheaper to teach people how to drive a car so they can avoid most of the accidents that do happen?

But that might mean less safety than is possible with all the technology in the world today! Think of the children you child-killing monster! Don't you know that training and skill have no effect on safety whatsoever!?!?*

*This message brought to you by the Automobile Insurance Association of Earth.

93celicaGT2 wrote:

alfadriver wrote:

DrBoost wrote: Makes me lose even more respect for engineers.

Since you are ASSUME the results..... Nice to know we are in such high standing with you. E-

What?

Should I have put that as Ass-U-Me?

The conclusions drawn from seeing the technology are assumptions, not goals, and the amount of though that goes into solving a goal. See- boost assumed how it works.

And when I say WE- I am an engineer. If you are not, then don't include yourself in the We part. If you are, then do.

Better?

Eric

Eric, I mean no disrepect but I can see how it was inferred. I'm not an engineer but I've worked with them all my working life and I am continually astounded by the lack of common sense that SEEMS so prevalent. When I was writing service manuals for Ford I had to go back like 10 years and change EVERY manual for EVERY v-engined car to show a picture of the motor and the dist. cap to show the firing order (most had the 1-5-3-6-4-2 style [extra credit, what motor has that firing order?]) because an engineer took the plug wires from his 5.0L can after 3 days couldn't figure it out. Do you know just how big a undertaking that is? And how much it cost Ford because this guy didn't know how to figure it out?
Then there was the engineer that told me and told me that in order to remove the oil pan on the 2.3L DOHC motor in the ranger you had to lower the front cross member. I told her every way I could that the cross member was welded in, not bolted in. She simply couldn't grasp the difference between a threaded fastener and a weld. She finally agreed to look at the truck when I told her I'd need some time with a torch to lower that cross member.
And we wonder why cars are so troublesome. Why do you think 1st model year vehicles are so much more problematic than the next years? (think my focus). It's because most engineers don't have a grasp on how a vehicle actually works or what it takes to remove said part so that first year is trial and error. Now, not trying to stroke your ego Eric, but if every engineer (I don't even know what kind of engineer you are) had the automotive knowledge you have things would be different.

alfadriver wrote:

93celicaGT2 wrote:

alfadriver wrote:

DrBoost wrote: Makes me lose even more respect for engineers.

Since you are ASSUME the results..... Nice to know we are in such high standing with you. E-

What?

Should I have put that as Ass-U-Me? The conclusions drawn from seeing the technology are assumptions, not goals, and the amount of though that goes into solving a goal. See- boost assumed how it works. And when I say WE- I am an engineer. If you are not, then don't include yourself in the We part. If you are, then do. Better? Eric

Oh... sorry, my brain didn't process that it should have been "assuming." Disregard.

foxtrapper wrote: Mmm. Since you didn't understand how much of it works, no great loss.

Typical errogant response from an engineer. "you are beneath me so you are of no great concern". I don't mind not being viewed as being on the same level as most engineers as I have 5 times the real world knowledge they will ever have.

foxtrapper wrote: The side protection and interspaced bags work together. There's none of the three stooges knocking around you cobbed up. That's about as real as the fear of getting knocked into the back seat from a front air bag.

Well, the blurb I read didn't mention the relationship between said devices. But you still have issues like body parts being in the deployment area and flotsam and jetsam hurtling about the cabin.

foxtrapper wrote: No burning from the inflatable seatbelt. That one's kinda nice to deal with peoples habit of leaving the shoulder strap too loose. Lots of folks hurt themselves because they leave the belts too loose. Volvo has a different approach, using explosive fired seatbelt tensioners.

To use your quote "Mmm. Since you didn't understand how much of it works, no great loss." This concept inflates the seat belt, not fires a pre-tensioner. The seatbelt itself is the airbag. I see the possibility of issues with this concept like burns from gas escaping or the fabric moving across the skin at the velocities needed.

foxtrapper wrote: The braking airbag is in interesting concept. Nice to help keep your car from nosediving under an SUV. This one deals with that problem. Guess you missed that too. It ain't gonna cause carnage by lifting the car off the tires, not that it would matter if it did, it provides plenty of friction.

Ok, so the airbag that is under the passenger compartment stops the front end from nosediving? That's considerable upward force and I see that as taking some of the pressure from the contact patches, making braking and steering less effective. Even worse under low traction situations when a big a$$ pillow wouldn't be as effective either. So I guess I didn't miss anything but thanks for pointing that out, I think. I also didn't say it would lift the car off the tires, guess you missed that too. And I'm sure the air bag would provide plenty of friction, and a swept area 1,000's of times the size as all 4 brakes put together but how is the car controlled?

My point is this, we are putting millions of dollars into technologies that wouldn't be necessary if folks were taught to drive better. I mean, we have adaptive cruise control now. What happens when the computer goes on the fritz? You rear and the car in front of you (setting off all kinds of airbags in every car in a 100' radius I suppose) and are not liable because the car you were driving in should have hit the brakes for you. Or suppose you side-swipe a car because the lane departure detection or the blind spot detection system didn't work correctly? Again, many air bags go off, lots of money is expended and the driver that didn't check his/her blind spot is not told that they actually have to look over his/her shoulder to make sure a car isn't there. Insurance rates for us all go up higher, cars get more expensive and more difficult to fix and I-75 becomes the litteral bumper car experience people joke that it is.
Now, I'm not against technology, fuel injection is a boon to HP, emissions, driveability and everything else that is good and ABS is great too. I just don't need all that crap that isn't going to work at some point when I need it to.

Seriously, who on this board wants the air bags mentioned above in his/her car?
Count me out.

I don't want air bags, period. I remove them from cars i buy, or just buy cars without airbags. They scare the E36 M3 out of me, and i've yet to buy a car that had airbags that the airbag light WASN'T on.

I wish all cars were like the TVR's, no seat belts. Everyone takes their life into their own hands when they drive...

Andrew

DrBoost wrote: I'm not an engineer but I've worked with them all my working life and I am continually astounded by the lack of common sense that SEEMS so prevalent.

I'm an Engineer and I've worked with normal people all my working life and I am continually astounded by the lack of intelligence that SEEMS so prevalent.

I think if you look hard at any career field you will find ~20-30% of the workforce is ill equipped for the tasks they are asked to perform. I'm confident it is no different in engineering, customer service, sales, management or any career field. If Ford, Chevy, Mercedes, whomever runs their company is such away that a bad engineer/marketing person/manager is ALLOWED to negatively impact the quality of product that is produced that is a corporate society issue. The engineer that made those bad decisions should not have been in the situation where the were allowed to have the final input on products. Obviously they are an idiot, however management is even worse for having allowed the situation to make it all the way to the customer. I highly doubt that as a whole engineers have a higher percentage of unqualified people working in engineering. Despite the fact that I went to school with and work with bad engineers who couldn't engineer their way out of a cardboard box with a box cutter, I still think it's unfair to characterize engineers in a negative way. Nearly every product you touch today from the most reliable easiest to service car to a spoon was designed and made possible by engineers. As a whole we have a pretty good track record of success.

93celicaGT2 wrote: I don't want air bags, period. I remove them from cars i buy, or just buy cars without airbags. They scare the E36 M3 out of me, and i've yet to buy a car that had airbags that the airbag light WASN'T on.

I am with you there... I would remove the ones from my Ti if I was legally allowed (they have to be there to pass inspection)

I have been in one accident where an airbag went off. The "smoke" choked me badly, making it hard to get out of the car and the bag itself burnt the skin on my right hand.

this was in a 20mph dive under a pickup