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Airbags are designed to deploy upon a frontal impact causing a certain level of deceleration, to protect driver and passenger from crashing their heads into the steering wheel and windshield. Susan's crash didn't involve a front impact. I believe the 99s didn't have side airbags yet.
In your case, since the deer was much lighter than your car, the car didn't decelerate enough for airbag deployment.
I once crashed into another car with a Neon without my airbags deploying. The guy at the body shop figured I was doing about 40 mph at the time of impact, slowing down (without ABS, unfortunately, so mostly skidding) from 65. The seatbelts kept me in place so there wasn't a need for the airbags. That day I vowed that I would never ever buy a car without ABS - the car in front of me had ABS...
I felt terrible about that accident. It was my first (and so far only) accident and although it was technically my fault -I rear-ended another car- in hindsight there was nothing I felt I did wrong. I was driving within the speed limit, with about 200 feet open road in front of me on the left lane of straight, exitless section of a 3 lane highway. Traffic was busy but fluent in all three lanes, the road was slightly wet but the sun was shining. It was a December morning and the sun was low on the horizon, right behind me, but not in my mirror. Visibility was great, but the deceptive part was that because the sunlight reflected off all the cars' taillights, you couldn't see any brake lights. Somehow somebody about three or four cars ahead of me must have hit the brakes for no apparent reason, and the cars following were probably too close, so they had to brake even harder. Then the road was slightly concave over a tiny bridge in front, so my visibility was limited to the car directly in front of me. I don't recall exactly, but I think that at the crucial moment I was briefly looking at my dash or my radio or checking my rear view mirror - I would normally have seen the brake lights in my periphal view. When I looked up, it took me about half a second to realize that the car in front of me was standing still. I was still doing 65 and I had about 70 feet left; guardrail on the left, traffic on the right. Hit the brakes, brace, and bang!
This was a highly improbable combination of factors: the low sun, the wet road, the small bridge, the car braking and me just briefly taking my focus off the road. In hindsight there was nothing I felt I could have done differently. I had been driving for an hour, with about 15 more minutes to drive to a business meeting. I had been giving traffic plenty of attention where needed on that trip, but this was a pretty eventless section of the road. My mind was partly with the meeting, but it was not a big deal so it wasn't distracting me from driving. Whichever way I looked at it, I felt that I was driving responsibly. But still I rear-ended a car and I was liable...
The only lesson I've learned is to keep even more distance, and especially be weary of this situation where you can't see any brake lights. And only buy cars with ABS. So far it's worked...
Drive safely.
Leo
posted by 199.197.1...
, Tue, 11 Oct 2005 11:42:36
, Mon, 10 Oct 2005 16:44:47
, Mon, 10 Oct 2005 14:45:16, Mon, 10 Oct 2005 13:51:04
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