tC Driver Knee Airbag

What other vehicles have this feature...most high end right?

 

I'm telling you all :D With all these new features, we all might as well drive with a helmet... Everyone thought I was sarcastic, but heck they make people who ride bikes wear them and they do it on a motorcycle... I seriously think we should either wear all everything, or just leave it to the essentials...

It's really contradicting how cars keep going faster and faster and we keep making all kinds of stuff to save us when we do go faster.... The safest thing to do is to make cars slower and slower...

OK lol, I am actually super sarcastic during this whole post... But I am serious about how ironic it is for us to make cars go faster and faster which is primarily one of the easiest ways to get into an accident to begin with :D

As for the knee airbags... I have no idea there even was such a thing :?:

 

I heard that airbags can actually leave people blind and injure them in ways they wouldn't be if there were no airbags.

Then again, the probably save a lot more lives than they do hurt people.

 

When I was in my accident in my truck (which was totaled) my airbags burned through my sweater and burned my arms...nothing too serious...just scary...but I don't want to know what would have happened to me wothout them...

 

They definitely save many more lives than they injure people. It's just like a seatbelt. More people lives are saved than the tiny percentage that gets trapped by a seatbelt or some other oddity that people quote as a reason not to use one...

I thought the knee airbag was a good idea. I've racked my knees on the dash in an accident before...

One of the problems they are seeing with airbags is having the units go off AFTER an accident. Firemen have been injured by the airbags exploding after an accident that didn't cause the airbags to trigger. They start getting hot or they hit one when they hacking into the car and POW!!! Especially now that cars are getting more and more airbags in them...

 

You guys have to understand that the airbags will only fucntion if you hit something hard enough for your head to hit the steering wheel... The seatbelt is usually enough to save you from hitting anything if you're not doing a head on to a full stop...

Any other small accident involving an airbag can injure you while not absolutely needed...

I don't know how many of you actually felt airbag material, but for the ones that have know that the material isn't soft and cushy... It's more like a hard nylon bag which shoots out in fractions of a second...

It's a world of pain...

If you ever get your knees tangled up in a coupe, you must be sitting really close or you must be going REALLY REALLY fast to actually have the car crumple past the crumple zone... Or you're freakishly tall :D

Where do they pop out of? Under the steering colum?

 

yeah. the material of the airbags hurt. i felt one and it was really rough.

 

Wonder which vehicles have airbag problems? First gut reaction would be that toyotas airbags work really well.

 

Toyota's air bags are multi stage airbags (seat position, seat belst use, and severity of crash). The air bags go off when there is a great decelleration of speed (doesn't necesarilly mean hitting something, you could tie a chain to the back of your car and run it until it catches and stops the car, the air bags will go off if you are going fast enough). Even if you sit close to the steering wheel, you should not get injured.

 

What do you mean by "you should not get injured?"

The bags pop out at an alarming rate, and the material is seriously hard to the touch... It scares me even more that the air bags come on during a herky jerk motion... I thought all airbags were sensor activated...

 

FYI:
Air bags deploy around 6-12 thousandths of a second depending on temperature and which stage is blown (dependent on decelleration) which is fast.

and either the Jeep Grand Cherokee or the Jeep Liberty had a knee impact air bag for the driver..I'm pretty sure it was the liberty when it first came out. However, it was deemed not worthy due to high cost and low value ad.

And the reason cars are getting faster is simple.....It's what the consumer wants. Most people aren't going to buy a slow car because it is safe. And the reason why cars are getting safer is simple.....because they are getting faster therefore need to be safer......and newer technologies are allowing for more structural integrity as well as new advancements in material properties and usage.

 

What do I mean that you "should not get injured?"

Obviously there is a chance that you can get injured from the air bag. You're a fool if you just rely on the air bag to protect you and not wear a seat belt. That is why the air bags are a Supplemental Restraint System. They help as an addition to the seat belts. Didn't you read the other posts here?

 

my first car was a early nineties camry. i crashed it at about 65 into a median head on. im 6'3" and nailed my head on the wheel. my knee also got jacked by the dash. i've had neck/shoulder problems ever since. but the major ouch of it all was the brusied chest/ribs from the belt.

so if you crash, you'll survive proabably. but airbags are standard so there's no real debate here. i have no knowledge of these knee airbags and have yet to here of another car utilizing them. i look forward to understanding them.

 

If you never touch the air bag by being strapped in by the seatbelt, then obviously you can't get hurt by the bag :D

I thought we're all assuming you touch the air bag... I always thought you'd feel the bag for at least a week if you touched it during it's explosion...

I just didn't understand how someone would not get hurt if they sat too close to the steering wheel... (assuming they HIT the air bag when it's deployed)

I haven't ever got shot by an air bag, so I was just wondering if you actually felt it... And I wanted a better understanding of how you can avoid getting hurt...

I do feel however an air bag would feel much better than the dash...

As for a bit on the safe distance of driver to air bag, I found this little exerpt while looking up some air bag stuff...

from http://www.spineuniverse.com/display...rticle835.html

 

60 minutes did a segment about side impacts on midsized sedans by suvs. The only cars that passed were the camary with side curtain air bags and the accord with side curtain air bags.

 

Sorry, I meant to add this earlier....

The knee airbag is not really similar to the front airbags......

The lower knee panel (often called knee bolster or driver lower panel in the industry) just "inflates" a couple inches to provide more cushion, it is not a huge bag that inflates at insane rates......this is my understanding of the knee panel "air bag", don't quote me.

 

The Kia Sportage was the first to come with a knee airbag. They have had it since at least 1997. There are federally mandated knee impact standards. Most cars pass this by using the design of the lower part of the dash and padded plastic. The Kia couldn't be configured to meet these standards so the airbag was introduced. I have no idea if this is the same reason the tC will have them.

 

i think its different than the one in the Kia

here are some pictures of knee airbags on the new Lexus RX 330...so it might be similar.

 

WOW, from that RX330, it would seem to be a much better feeling than to hit the dash...

But when I drive, I have a tendancy to sit as low and as far back as my legs would take me.... I usually drive sports cars :D (or wannabe sports cars LOL)

Don't get me wrong tho, through all my seemingly "anti airbag" posts... I'm all for the new technology just given time :D

As for the crash tests that pass with the new side airbags... That don't surprise me at all ;) I can't imagine how a car would do on a front impact crash with out front airbags... But I'll still be a skeptic until it becomes a standard feature :D

 

i didnt know there was even a driver knee airbag...