[aasheeshchopra]

Yesterday, there was accident involving my car, a Toyota Innova, and another vehicle (a white Hyundai) near Ludhiana. My car was being driven by my driver and in the backseats were my two nephews.

Due to the fault of the Hyundai driver, who entered a main road at full speed, through a slip road without looking at traffic coming from behind, unfortunately, our car collided with the other car. The Innova overturned three times before landing to the side of the road. The other driver immediately ran away from the spot.

With Mata Raani's grace and kindness, my two nephews were unharmed and have only a few scratches and slight pain in the chest from the impact, and the driver has a few injuries to the arm, fingers and chest from the impact with the steering wheel and glass from the windows.

The intention of this post is to show everyone who has a Toyota, that none of the airbags opened. Everyone was wearing seat belts and my car is regularly serviced at the Toyota Jalandhar workshop. The car had no indication of any airbag fault.

Today it was my Toyota. Tomorrow, it could be yours.

And Toyota Motor Corporation, I will see you in Court.

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by aasheeshchopra

The intention of this post is to show everyone who has a Toyota, that none of the airbags opened. Everyone was wearing seat belts and my car is regularly serviced at the Toyota Jalandhar workshop. The car had no indication of any airbag fault.

Today it was my Toyota. Tomorrow, it could be yours.

And Toyota Motor Corporation, I will see you in Court.

Don't bother!

There was no frontal impact to trigger the airbag sensors

[starter]

Originally Posted by ajmat

Don't bother!

There was no frontal impact to trigger the airbag sensors

But Ajit, this looks like a top-end innova.
Shouldn't the side airbags deploy even though there was no frontal impact?

[Turrrb0]

Originally Posted by ajmat

Don't bother!

There was no frontal impact to trigger the airbag sensors

From the looks of it, this seems to be the top end 'Z' trim Crysta (Brown leather seats), which comes with 7 airbags, including front seat side airbags and curtain airbags.
So a side impact should have triggered them, or am I missing something?

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by starter

But Ajit, this looks like a top-end innova.
Shouldn't the side airbags deploy even though there was no frontal impact?

Originally Posted by Turrrb0

So a side impact should have triggered them, or am I missing something?

Looks like you both are correct. Am no expert but looks like the passenger side front wheel got the brunt of the impact. There are no impact sensors there. If it hit anywhere behind the 'A' pillar, the airbags could have been triggered.

[aasheeshchopra]

Originally Posted by ajmat

Looks like you both are correct. Am no expert but looks like the passenger side front wheel got the brunt of the impact. There are no impact sensors there. If it hit anywhere behind the 'A' pillar, the airbags could have been triggered.

Brother, the car did 3 somersaults. There were impacts on all sides. No airbags deployed.

What is the point of "providing" airbags all over the car if only the front has sensors?

[samaspire]

Originally Posted by aasheeshchopra

And Toyota Motor Corporation, I will see you in Court

Originally Posted by ajmat

Don't bother!

There was no frontal impact to trigger the airbag sensors

Check out this accident from a couple of years back. Here all 7 airbags deployed.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/offic...ml#post4013364 (Toyota Innova Crysta : Official Review)



Compare this to the current accident.

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by aasheeshchopra

Brother, the car did 3 somersaults. There were impacts on all sides. No airbags deployed.

What is the point of "providing" airbags all over the car if only the front has sensors?

Judging by the pictures, the sides never received any impact damage strong enough to trigger the sensor. The passenger side is relatively unscathed. If it had somersaulted three times all sides would be damaged. Also the overall body would have been extremely bent and distorted. Quite possible, the Innova overturned on the drivers side and spun on the side. Again, sensors cannot be placed everywhere lest airbags get triggered by minor impacts.

Originally Posted by samaspire

Check out this accident from a couple of years back. Here all 7 airbags deployed.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/offic...ml#post4013364 (Toyota Innova Crysta : Official Review)

Attachment 1884692


Compare this to the current accident.

Attachment 1884693

My guess is that the sensors might be located under the grill on the central cross member which looks unaffected in the current accident.

Best to get a technical assessment done before slapping a case! However, your driver and passengers emerged with minor injuries so the safety structure did its job. There was no need for the airbags to trigger, it would have resulted in minor burns, that's all. If your passengers suffered from previous injury which could have been mitigated by an airbag, then you might have had a case.

The lack of severe injuries and less damage that not correspond to three somersaults presents a weak case

[RajeVenu]

Originally Posted by Turrrb0

From the looks of it, this seems to be the top end 'Z' trim Crysta (Brown leather seats), which comes with 7 airbags, including front seat side airbags and curtain airbags.
So a side impact should have triggered them, or am I missing something?

I think as @Ajmat has pointed out the front wheel has taken the brunt, the extensive damage to the shell of crysta is due to the roll over after the impact. The impact has burst the tires and either the driver would have given steering input or the rims would have dug in, leading to roll over. The first roll seems to be on the left side which again points to the rim having become pivot.

Airbags don’t necessarily deploy in roll overs as deceleration rate is not that high.

It seems that the Innova must have been at some speed to have caused this accident. The driver would have seen the Hyundai at the last moment, and tried to avoid it by swerving right and hit the Hyundai at an angle and then rolled over. A rollover due to the hit only would have produced significantly more damages than visible on the Innova.

If the OP can confirm which side the car rolled over and if possible provide the picture of Hyundai then it would be clear.

[Turbanator]

Originally Posted by aasheeshchopra

The intention of this post is to show everyone who has a Toyota, that none of the airbags opened.

That looks bad, Definitely could have been much worst. Glad you guys are safe.

Originally Posted by ajmat

Don't bother!

There was no frontal impact to trigger the airbag sensors

Really??

This Innova appears to be a top end Z model from the looks of upholstery and If Side bags are not programmed to open after such an Impact/ rollover then better someone take Toyota and their software guys designing such logic to some serious task

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by aasheeshchopra

Brother, the car did 3 somersaults. There were impacts on all sides. No airbags deployed.

Airbag deployment is incredibly complicated.

The main issue is that consumers think of airbags as soft air-filled pillows that magically appear just in time to save you.

The reality is that airbags are highly dangerous controlled explosions that should trigger ONLY under specific conditions - otherwise they could do more harm than good.


When the situation isn't clear-cut, manufacturers will err on the side of safety (ie. not deploying the airbags) rather than deploying the airbags and risking more harm (and lawsuits).


It's natural for a person to feel anger and frustration after an accident, and that is often multiplied when a piece of equipment we paid several lakhs for seems to have failed to do its job. However, we have to understand that airbags aren't supposed to deploy in all accident conditions.

Eg. In a slow roll-over, a wrongly triggered curtain airbag could break an occupants neck.

(Also standard curtain airbags are designed to protect passengers from sudden transverse impacts, as opposed to roll overs)


Do keep all of this in mind when proceeding. Glad to hear everyone was buckled up and there were no serious injuries

[boniver]

Originally Posted by aasheeshchopra

With Mata Raani's grace and kindness, my two nephews were unharmed and have only a few scratches and slight pain in the chest from the impact, and the driver has a few injuries to the arm, fingers and chest from the impact with the steering wheel and glass from the windows.

The intention of this post is to show everyone who has a Toyota, that none of the airbags opened. Everyone was wearing seat belts and my car is regularly serviced at the Toyota Jalandhar workshop. The car had no indication of any airbag fault.

Today it was my Toyota. Tomorrow, it could be yours.

And Toyota Motor Corporation, I will see you in Court.

That seems like a nasty crash. Thank God your nephews and the driver are alright. Please consider investing in a dashcam in the future. Dashcam footage would've helped you a lot, since you're looking to go the legal way.

I'm sure other members might suggest taking up the matter with Toyota instead of going to court and investing your time and resources in something that could drag on for ages, and might not give you a satisfactory result. However, I completely support your decision and believe that you should pursue the matter legally. In this instance, your nephews are safe. In another instance however, a fellow member's son suffered from severe traumatic brain injuries. According to him, the young boy's right side of the body, hearing, speech, motor skills, all are severely damaged. That kid with a bright future ahead of him, will most likely never be able to put the incident behind him.
Like to thread: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/road-...r-injured.html (XUV500: Severe crash, but not a single airbag deployed (driver injured))

Please keep us updated on the how things pan out. You deserve the answer to your questions and most importantly, justice if it's due.

Moderators: Can we have a separate thread for this please? Or add this to a thread where such discussions regarding airbags have taken place before? Thanks.

[IshaanIan]

Originally Posted by ajmat

Don't bother!

There was no frontal impact to trigger the airbag sensors

You don't require the airbag sensors to be hit directly in order for the car to understand that it has been in an accident. Multiple data points like acceleration/deceleration from various vectors in accordance to driver inputs can paint a clear enough picture for the ECM to detect a crash and deploy the necessary airbags.

Here's a link to a post of a Kizashi whose wheel again seemed to take the brunt of the impact yet, the car knew exactly which airbags to deploy and did so:
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-...ml#post4432347 (Maruti Suzuki Kizashi 2.4 CVT: Test Drive and Review)

There are several instances where airbag sensors may not have been directly hit yet the car is able to determine which airbags to deploy. This is a clear case of failure on Toyota's behalf. I mean the car's Electronic Stability Program itself has the tech in it to detect a rollover

Here are some images of my own car which had been in an accident several years ago. It correctly determined that it needs to deploy only the front two airbags, and it did so with no fuss:

[Turbanator]

Originally Posted by ajmat

Judging by the pictures, the sides never received any impact damage strong enough to trigger the sensor. The passenger side is relatively unscathed. If it had somersaulted three times all sides would be damaged. Again, sensors cannot be placed everywhere lest airbags get triggered by minor impacts.

The lack of severe injuries and less damage that not correspond to three somersaults presents a weak case

Let's give the benefit to the sufferer and let him explain.

Originally Posted by Rehaan

Airbag deployment is incredibly complicated.

The main issue is that consumers think of airbags as soft air-filled pillows that magically appear just in time to save you.

Correct, because that's the way companies sell the side curtain bags and us customers pay.

The reality is that airbags are highly dangerous controlled explosions that should trigger ONLY under specific conditions - otherwise they could do more harm than good.

Having suffered a head-on collision in a Corolla way back in 2004, I can say from personal experience, even though Airbags make a loud noise and smell bad (or used to be) they do help more than any harm. I will not agree that these can be more harmful than say non-deployment or not being present. But, these are SRS for a reason & seat belts are the primary saver as in this case.

When the situation isn't clear-cut, manufacturers will err on the side of safety (ie. not deploying the airbags) rather than deploying the airbags and risking more harm (and lawsuits).

Are you sure? I haven't heard damage from Airbags can be worse than the loss in an unknown situation in an Accident, if this is indeed True and manufacturers think like that, then we have a dark future.

[venkyhere]

Originally Posted by Rehaan

Airbag deployment is incredibly complicated.

The reality is that airbags are highly dangerous controlled explosions that should trigger ONLY under specific conditions - otherwise they could do more harm than good.

Airbags would be made by common OEMs for different brands, hence there must be some industry wide specification/standard that everyone has adopted as a whole, before the contract with the supplier is inked.

Similarly, I wonder if there is a standard "algorithmic criteria" for the part of the firmware that deals with reading various sensors' (how many ? wouldn't there be a standard set) values, checking whether one/more of these cross each of their preset threshold numbers (chosen by the engineers who implement it) or processing the values to arrive at a numerical quantity which has some threshold, to finally influence a yes/no decision on whether to deploy the airbag. My hunch is that its upto the implementation of each manufacturer.

The contention here is that the Crysta failed to deploy the airbags while the kizashi (in the above pics) did, for a much lesser impact to the left front wheel area. On what basis is "may be more harmful than beneficial" decided ? obviously by the nature of the algorithm and the threshold values for sensor inputs it chooses. This could differ from one carmaker to another.
OR.... woudn't it ?