Air Bags (Continued)

The Billy Cox Group has conducted many crash tests involving airbags to demonstrate their effectiveness and the accident reconstruction techniques used to reconstruct collisions where they had been deployed. In this test Mr. Cox was traveling over 30 miles per hour into a parked vehicle. As you can see is isn't something you would want to do for fun. Most deaths and serious airbag inflation injuries occur when people are positioned incorrectly when the airbags deploy. Typically this is from being too close to an airbag when it inflates.

While Mr. Cox walks away from these tests, they 'er not painless and can leave you stunned from being slapped in the face by an airbag inflating at high speed (some airbags expand at over 200 miles per hour). When an airbag deploys, what looks like smoke, is released. It is regular cornstarch or talcum powder, which is used by the airbag manufacturers to keep the bags pliable and lubricated while they're in storage. Contrary to what many people belive the air bag doesn't use an explosive to deploy, it is actually an extremely fast chemical reaction.