serious front collision in car airbag didnt deploy

dizzycreak

Hi, my Dh had a serious rta 2 weeks today. Toyota yaris hit fence head on, flipped on back & feel 20ft, car write off, air bag didnt deploy. Dh suffered facial injuries and left arm mutiple fractures resulting in 5 hour op to fix together.

I have reported it to toyota who are going to inspect the car but should we do anything else? We believe his injuries were probably caused by him hitting the steering wheel so if airbag worked he may have had less severe injuries.

Any advice please

Dizzycreak

vikingaero

Either the airbag system had a fault or the sensors didn't deploy the airbag because each separate impact (fence, flip, fall) wasn't hard enough to trigger the airbags.

Some people I know are surprised that airbags trigger at what they consider to be low speed impacts and others have major shunts without deployment of the airbags.

I would guess that a fence would be a light impact, the flip wouldn't have deployed the airbag because of no frontal collision, and the fall didn't trigger it either as there would have been no road speed information given to the sensors.

mikey72

All I can suggest is to seek independent legal advice on this, and I hope he recovers ok

MaximumImpact

Not sure what you want advice on???

Airbag Non Deployment happens...Dependant on the physics of the crash. Also Airbags deploy late, semi deploy..You will be very, very hard pushed to sue for non deployment of an airbag. Search the internet and you will find that even in America they very rarely sue for this.

Just because you have airbags isn't a guarantee of walking away from a crash with minor injuries.

dizzycreak

Thanks, the front of the car was completly crushed, even see front of dashboard pushed inwards.

He was lucky to have so few injuries really.

On a possitive note the car was strong enough not to crush when upside down!

dizzycreak

MaximumImpact wrote: »

Not sure what you want advice on???

Airbag Non Deployment happens...Dependant on the physics of the crash. Also Airbags deploy late, semi deploy..You will be very, very hard pushed to sue for non deployment of an airbag. Search the internet and you will find that even in America they very rarely sue for this.

Just because you have airbags isn't a guarantee of walking away from a crash with minor injuries.

Thanks, really just thinking if we should do anything about compensation, never thought aboutit until a couple of days ago when someone else suggested it.

I can see its complicted though and we are just gratful that it wasnt worse

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

dizzycreak wrote: »

Thanks, really just thinking if we should do anything about compensation, never thought aboutit until a couple of days ago when someone else suggested it.

Compensation for what?

thescouselander

dizzycreak wrote: »

Thanks, the front of the car was completly crushed, even see front of dashboard pushed inwards.

He was lucky to have so few injuries really.

On a possitive note the car was strong enough not to crush when upside down!

I cant understand this. Your DH was in a serious accident but escaped with his life and some non life threatening injuries but you still want compensation from the car manufacturer. It was probably the design of the car that saved him despite the air bag not going off - it could have been worse in an older car.

Whose fault was the accident anyway? If it was someone elses fault you would be better to pursue them for compensation. If is was his fault then there really is no-one else to blame.

dobbie82

Your insurance should cover the personal injury, time off work etc if you had full cover.

I agree with previous posters that the car didnt decellerate from a front impact, and there are no airbag sensors on the roof.

from an american website, where somone has complaine their airbag didnt go off,the reply was:

Although your Contour received extensive damage, it appears to me that the dynamics
of the crash never caused the front of the vehicle to receive a sudden deceleration
force. You need an instantaneous force equivalent to a 17mph collision with a
fixed object to deploy most new generation frontal airbags.

Hintza

Hmmmm, think I'll keep my trap shut on this one. (for the time being anyway)

dizzycreak

ok, we had not even thought of compensation until other poeple suggested it and still dont feel its appropriate but just wanted other peoples views, didnt mean to suggest we were aafter money