Airbags deployed after hitting a dog. Understanding why? Hey Folks, to kill the suspense upfront if you are wondering why it was an unfortunate pleasure then the answer is that lucky for me there was not much harm done to me the sole occupant in the car or any human on the road, resulting in experiencing airbag deployment which otherwise would be in a pretty grim situation.
Now without giving away all the ending let me give you the story. My work entails me to travel internationally once in a while and this time it took me to Israel which is one the biggest hitech company hubs outside of Bay area and Bangalore. Actually I have been visiting Israel pretty often (3rd time in 1.5yr) since my semiconductor company has multiple design and development offices based there. Since I usually need to move between different offices and love to drive, I rent and drive on my own. Driving is very easy as its like US (right hand side) in terms of roads and cars and having lived in US for a while it comes easily to me.
The incident happened at end of of my trip when time I was driving from south of Israel towards Ben Gurion INtl Airport in Tel Aviv which was about 100kms from the city i was in. My flight was at 6am and I checked out at 1am since its about an hour's drive to the airport thanks to the amazing highways where averaging 120kmph is piece of cake (legal limit is 110kmph). I was driving a Mazda3 fully loaded (front/curtain airbags, abs, esp etc). I had just gotten out of the city and hit the highway doing about 90kmph on the slower lane. Eventually I came across a truck and I slowed down and moved to the fast lane to overtake hitting about 80kmph and gradually gaining speed. This part of the highway had street lights and was well lit. As i started overtaking the truck and almost came in parallel I noticed a reasonably big dog possibly wild came and stood in front of the truck. Within that split second I remem thinking to myself that please dont cross and come into my lane. And that very moment the dog noticed the truck and for some reason rather than sprinting he just ran slowly across into my lane. It was almost as if he was just saving himself from the truck and didnt notice my car. I braked the moment he moved but there was not much I could do due to limited distance. Since truck was in parallel on the right and railing on the left hand side i just held the steering and didnt steer the car sideways and rammed into the dog.
Next thing I know there is this huge blast or pop, my chest feel crushed and ears are ringing and the car is full of smoke. I was in a bit of shock and took me a second or so to realize that the air bags have deployed both for me and the passenger side. The reason my chest was crushed was cause of the pre-tensioners in the seat belts which kicked along with the air bags. Once i got my senses back I immediately opened the windows to release the smoke and turned on the hazard sign since i was stationery on the fast lane of the highway and got out of car to ensure I dont get rammed by someone from the back. Lucky for me I had kept my foot on the brake and the car stuck to the lane. Since it was past 1 am, traffic was light and the highway was well lit and helped avoid any further incidents from the traffic coming from behind. I inspected the damage and suspecting the worst only to find a broken number plate and rest of the bumper almost intact. At that very moment i realised that the engine was still running and I immediately jumped in and moved the car to safety on the right side off the road.
To cut rest of the story short. I took 5 mins sitting in the car calming myself. Inspected the car for damage and decided it made most sense to drive onto the airport without airbags or seat belts if i wanted to catch my flight and be back in India. I reached airport without any further incidents but I drove very cautiously. I had full insurance and Avis was very helpful. Checked with me for any personal injury and then immediately made an incident report and let me on my way to catch the flight without any liability.
Now coming to the questions and doubts. Please look at the 3 pics I managed to take below.
You can see the airbags deployed and then the last pic of the cars front. You can easily notice the broken number plate and the bumper broken mount for the plate. But beyond that there is hardly any visible damage. There was some damage on the lower side of the bumper to the grill but that's about it. There is not even any misalignment of the bumper. Was this hit strong enough to trigger the airbags or maybe the sensors were calibrated too sensitive? I understand that airbags are for frontal impact in case of a crash which is strong enough to cause lot of damage and energy transfer inside the car to the occupants. But a 1200kg car hitting a 30kg dog doesnt seem like that event to me.
This makes me feel a bit concerned cause I have a Figo with airbags and hitting a dog on Indian highways is not unlikely . Will like to hear inputs from folks on the forum. I have written an email to Mazda, lets see whether I get a response from them.
Last edited by supertinu : 27th May 2013 at 00:01.
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