January 15, 2019 • 39 mins
It turns out that the inflatable bag of air that shoots out of your steering wheel or dashboard is the result of a controlled explosion of solid fuel, just like in a rocket – aimed for your face.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot Com. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's
Jerry and this is Airbags Airbags. Addition, I'm surprised we
haven't done this one yet. It seems so stuff you
(00:22):
should Know and it's just been sitting out there ready
to explode in your face. Yes, hopefully in the best
way possible. Uh. And I also had a bit of
a hard time because this article we should mention is
from Marshall Brain, who is the original inventor of the
(00:42):
house Stuff Works website ninety years ago in his k Yeah,
so he used to write everything and then boy it's
been through so many changes since then. But this article
that was uh, Like he keeps talking about like looking
forward to and what's in or for its, So it's
kind of hard to find out what was still legit
(01:03):
and what wasn't. But I got the nuts and bolts
of it. I think what's weird is it seems like
a lot of the regulation is exactly the same. Yeah,
which is I mean, I like I ran in the
same thing too, Like I I go look up stuff,
and I'd be like, well, wait, they're saying the same thing,
but this says two thousands sixteen or two thousand eighteen
or something. I don't think regulations have changed all that much.
(01:23):
I think you're right. I got tripped up a little
bit with the UM factory installed off switch for passenger side,
and I finally figured all that out. I think, save it.
It's gold so exciting. Just wait, what's weird? Is this
is the stuff you should know? Topic? Um? I just
realized how boring stuff you should know can be. Chuck.
(01:47):
Let's start with history, shall we. Yeah. So, apparently when
I think of air bags, I think of like the nineties,
that's airbag erra to me. Um, no, that there have
been airbags and cars in the United States going back
to the seventies as far as like mass produced, commercially
(02:08):
available air bags, especially driver's side, And then I think
even a little later in the seventies, um passenger side
airbags came around. I had no idea. You know, well,
you hate Chevy Chase, right. Have you ever seen Vacation
the first one? There's an airbag in there that Yeah,
he jumps over the gulch and crashes his car, and
(02:29):
as he's opening his door, the air quote unquote airbag
goes off, which is clearly like a trash bag, and
it's clearly coming from outside the car on the ground
because he opens the door and it comes up really quick.
Like they couldn't figure out a way even in a
three to make it look like it came out of
the steering right. The director was like, is that what
an airbag looks like? In the special effects guys like
(02:51):
do you know what an airbag looks like? Yeah? And
do you have any more blow? Um? I don't know
if that was Chevy Chase base or just making movie
in the eighties, making movies in the eighties. The cocaine reference.
Oh yeah, that was everything in the eighties. Um. But
apparently when was it nineteen fifty three that an engineering
(03:13):
tech from Pennsylvania named John Hetrick put a patent on
a design for what he called a safety cushion assembly
for automohive automotive vehicles. He said, automohive. Maybe that's where
he went wrong because he took it to Ford and
GM and Chrysler, and of course they were all like me.
If you listen to our Pinto episode They're like, uh,
(03:36):
we got cars that are killing, burning people alive. You
think we care about your air bags? They there, he
just got crickets back. Yeah, you got nothing. And it
stayed that way until another guy from the Pinto episode,
Ralph nader Um, wrote in his book Unsafe at Any
Speed that air bags, along with seat belts and conjunction
of seat belts, would save lives big time. And he
(03:58):
was right, actually even still to this day. Um the
sweet spot for surviving a terrible crash is seat belt
in an air bag, both working perfectly to save your life.
But the idea behind um air bags was well, seat belts,
(04:19):
I think became uh um part of federal regulations in
the United States and five sixty seven as an installed
but like no one war him right, there was no
law that said you had to wear them for many,
many years, and so only about a quarter of Americans
wore them. So people were still dying in carrex even
(04:40):
though their cars had seat belts, because they weren't wearing
them because they were idiots. So people said, well, maybe
we'll put in these airbags. These are passive safety features.
A seat belt is technically an active safety feature because
unless you have one of those where like you'd open
the door in the yeah, and then you close it
(05:01):
and go over. You forgot about those. Even still you
had to do the lap belt part yourself. So that's
technically act. You have to do something to put it on.
Air bag is different where you are just sitting there
and it does it whether you want it to or not.
It's a passive safety feature. So they said, well, maybe
if we put air bags in, it will save lives,
and so they started putting air bags in. Yeah, and
(05:23):
then I'm sure even back then there were people that
like government regulating, socialists trying to save me. Yeah, I
can't even turn off this air bag. It's a good
whale and Jennings, I wish I could do a good
whale and Jennings, I wouldn't be doing the show. Let's
be out on the road really with my act. Oh yeah,
(05:43):
that hurts. I'd bring you along, okay, you'd be little whale,
I'd say, whale and Jennings, Um, so I think, uh,
starting in what like, they started putting them out and
finally in the seventies and the eighties. But when they
sign is when they said finally all new cars gotta
(06:09):
have these air bags. Yeah, for for the frontal airbags
at least for the driver and the passenger side funnel
air Yeah, it was still a little bit before the
side impact bags were mandatory. And they said, okay, well,
everybody saved. The world is saved because we have airbags now,
so no one's ever going to die in a crash.
And then people started saying, wait a minute, um, I
(06:29):
I just read about this person who was an a
fender bender and their air bag went off and it
killed them. What about that? And so they started looking
into airbags a little bit and they said, oh, okay,
well maybe this is something what you call a work
in progress. And still to this day, air bred air
bag technology, this passive safety technology is a work in
progress because part of airbag technology is also educating the
(06:53):
public and how to use it correctly. Because an air
bag is not a soft little pillow that you you're like, well,
after this crash, I guess I let's take a nap here.
It's a it's a it's basically like a punch to
your face. YEA that inflates very quickly, um, and is
meant to keep you from eating the steering column, which
(07:13):
apparently you can do and a high enough speed crash
your seatbelt. Even when you're wearing it correctly and you're
sitting where you're supposed to be, you can still be
forced into the steering column. The point of the air bag,
especially for the driver, is that you, Um, it provides
a barrier between you and the steering calm. It's not
a comfortable barrier, but it's a barrier that will keep
(07:34):
your chest from caving in. Yeah. And obviously people are
more at risk if you're you know, let's say you're
a little short stuff and you gotta hike that seat
way forward in order to drive, you're that much closer
physically to the steering column. Um. And so the air
bag is meant to He's spent to help everyone, but
especially like people that are too too close for comfort. Yes,
(07:58):
but if you're sitting too clo to the steering column,
it can hurt you. Yeah, I think, what do they say,
get yourself ten inches back at least you? Oh wait,
we're getting weight ahead of ourselves here. Ten inches everyone,
it is ten inches. You're right. So, um, let's talk
about let's talk about the original UM idea for the
air bag. It was you take a thing of compressed
(08:21):
gas and you have an attached to like basically a
balloon or a bladder or something like that, or in vacation,
a hefty bag, and under the right circumstances like maybe
a crumple, that that compressed gases triggered and it blows
up the the balloon and you're saved. The problem is
(08:42):
is there's a lot of issues with this setup. Number one,
it doesn't work fast enough. The compressed gas still does
not work fast enough. This is original technology, like the
stuff they were working with in the seventies. They didn't
They had an idea that they wanted an inflatable bag,
but they didn't know how to do it quite yet.
(09:03):
So the original idea was compressed gas. You know, like um,
like a night like you're like a whippet, a giant
whipp it, like your whippe, you know, like what I've
got in my on the desk, whip it you do
in between during ad breaks with your cracker. Imagine the
cracker and a giant whipp it in your steering column. Yeah, okay,
(09:24):
that was basically the idea first and so one that
that whipp it wouldn't inflate the bag. Fast enough. That's
a big problem because if it doesn't inflate fast enough,
not only does it not keep you from hitting the
steering column, it can actually make it worse. There's this
I think it's like ten Amazing Facts or something about
airbags on Gelopnik and they have a video on there
(09:47):
and side by side it is side by side of
crash tests with the crash test dummies. Um. Yes, yeah,
they were like, we were so tired of your music
in this car, so they they it's side by side
with crash has dummies and one is an airbag that
deploys and in the right time. The other one is
(10:10):
an airbag that deploys late. And the one that deploys late,
the the dummies head goes forward right and then right
when it's about to hit the steering wheel, the air
black airbag inflates and it crushes the guy's head backwards
at like a ninety degree angle to where it's supposed
to be. And um, you're just like, oh, that's what
(10:32):
happens if the airbag deploys late. So the timing is
really everything. So the idea that it would deploy late
or not fast enough was not only not good enough,
it was actually dangerous. Yeah, because the whole idea here
and sweet Marshall brain includes a whole bit on you know,
the physics of a car crash. But it's worth noting that,
you know, when you're driving and you hit something that's
(10:54):
um with your car, like head on, let's say, Uh,
everything wants to come to a complete stop that's in
that car, including your body in your face. Uh, so
you've you've only got a certain a very very very
small amount of time to get that bag fully safely inflated.
As as your head is doing. It's final like alright,
(11:16):
this is where I want to stop, right exactly, It's
final resting point. So let's take a break and we'll
talk more about the physics of the car crash after all. Right, So, Chuck,
(11:52):
you're saying, like, in a car crash, the car stops
almost instantly from everything I've seen, Like it's it's so
close to instantaneous that the shorthand is it stops instantly,
but you're still moving forward. That's the point of your
seatbelt is to hold you in place. But the seatbelt
can cause all sorts of damage in and of itself,
(12:13):
but it's still better than just flying on buckled into
the steering column. Yeah, but like you can't um. It
takes time to stop everything, right, it's it is not instantaneous. No,
if it were instantaneous, you would crumple like the car. Right,
So you want they you want to be slowed down
(12:34):
and in a in a way that's so fast that
you don't hit the steering column but in but is
gentle enough that it doesn't just like cut you in
two bas Okay, it is extremely tricky. So what they
found out is that if you inflate an air bag,
you have to First of all, the air bag is
(12:56):
big enough that it basically has the distance between you
and the steering column that it's trying to protect you from. Yeah,
which is good, but that also means your face is
that much closer, which shortens that time. Even more shortens
the time that it can it can deploy in and again,
remember when you're talking about compressed gas, it just wasn't
fast enough. So they figured out that you need to
(13:18):
have an air bag basically get the input that a
crash is happening, and then deploy within about thirty thousands
of a second. So if you take one second, you
chop it into one thousand equal parts. You would tick
off thirty of them and still have nine hundred and
seventy left in that second before that airbag has done deploying.
(13:42):
That's how fast they have to deploy, which is astounding.
It's amazing that they can do that, but they can
do it. They finally figured it out, and the way
that they figured it out was instead of using compressed gas,
using basically the same thing that they used to power rockets,
basically solid rocket fuel. Yeah. I mean it's just that
you it that Um was that vice you said that
one articles a scientific American? Yeah, yeah, where they basically said,
(14:06):
for all practical purposes, is a small explosion goes off?
Oh that one was wired Oh yeah wired y Yeah,
like a small explosion goes off in your steering wheel
or I guess on the passenger side in the in
the dashboard to make this happen, And that in and
of itself is can be dangerous. It definitely can be.
And um, they've actually kind of got the chemistry down
(14:26):
so that, uh, it's as non dangerous as possible when
everything's working correctly. But they start with something called sodium
as i'd, which is basically um, sodium and nitrogen compound,
and when it's just sitting there in its powdered form,
it's pretty stable. It's fine. But if you apply enough
(14:48):
heat to it, I think three d degrees celsius, which
is pretty hot, it it breaks down. It decomposes, and
when it decomposes it breaks into two different things. One
is night drogen gas and the other is um sodium,
just plain old sodium metals. And the nitrogen gas gets
way bigger than the little handful of sodium aside that
(15:11):
it grew from. The nitrogen is what is in that bag,
essentially like filling it up so quickly. The nitrogen gas
that that grows, Yeah, but isn't a side sodium aside toxic,
so they have to add other things in there. So
the sodium aside itself isn't toxic. But the sodium metals
that is a byproduct incid ignites, they're not actually toxic either.
(15:34):
But when they combine with water, like water vapor in
the air, it becomes sodium hydroxide a K A LIE.
So you don't want LIE flowing through the passenger compartment
because you're gonna get chemical burns right after your air
bag goes off. So they add other stuff like potassium
nitrate I believe to um combine with the salt the
(15:55):
sodium um to render it inert and then actually produce
even more nitrogen. Right, So it's filling up a bag
made of nylon fabric that has folded into that steering well.
I think there's like talcum powder and stuff to keep
it supple. Yeah, And if you've ever I mean, I've
never had an airbag deploy, thankfully while I was in
a car. But uh, I know that powder is like
(16:17):
a big part of it, right from what I hear.
That's what I hear. Uh. And then there's a sensor
like here's the thing. Everything has to go perfectly because
you don't want it to go off when it shouldn't um,
because that's no good. So I think it has to be.
Is it still accurate to say it's ten to fifteen
miles an hour hitting a fixed like wall? Essentially? That
(16:39):
was I think that's all right? Is it? They've decompressed
that since then they have it, It's it's much less
um rigid. Okay, So when you when your car hits
something and stop, suddenly, there's an accelerometer that's measuring the
deceleration and like five different factors. Okay, yeah, like you
(16:59):
just went from thirty to zero so fast. We know
that you've been in a wreck. And it's measuring not
just this direction, but also that direction to that direction
to make sure that what's going on is an actual
like front frontal crash. It sends this data, this raw
data to a micro controller, a little tiny computer in
your car. Actually that's part of the air bag um assembly,
(17:22):
and the microprocessor runs this data through an algorithm. The
algorithm decides whether it's a front and crash or not,
and if it is, then it deploys the air bag.
What it does is it sets off an electric circuit
which goes and ignites a little charge which blows up
that sodium hayzide, which then blows into nitrogen gas. Happens
(17:43):
in thirty thousands of a second. Yeah, Like, if you
ever I mean, we've certainly gone over enough amazing like
inventions of mankind through the show. But if you ever
doubt just how brilliant human kind is, Like look at
the air bag. Especially engineers, you know, unbelieve off to
to walk that line of doing this safely because they
(18:03):
could have given up and been like, cheez, I don't
think we can. There's no way we can get it
done that fast safely. Yeah, Like, let's think of another idea.
But they were like, no, let's stick with the air
bag naders on us. They said, go get the engineers.
So that's the new way of doing it. Apparently the
old way, according to Canada's transportation website, there would be
(18:24):
a little hollow tube with a ball bearing held in
place at the end by a magnet. Really, and when
the car was hit hard enough, the ball bearing would
be jarred loose from its position. Roll down the right, yeah,
roll down the tube, and then um complete an electrical
(18:44):
circuit that would send the ignition or ignite the ignition charge.
That sounds too much like a Rube Goldberg, which definitely does.
I think they're like, we can improve on Yeah, geez,
that's scary. Um all right, I guess we should talk
a little bit about the the ten inches and the
safety concerns. So apparently placing yourself ten inches from you're
(19:11):
steering the front of your steering will the the center
I guess, or that thing pops out is plenty of
room because they say the first the risk zone is
two to three inches. Uh, So they say get back
at least ten inches. And if you're like my mom
has a little short stuff, and like every time I
go to move her car, I'm just like, are you
kidding me? And I'm not even big, and I'm like,
(19:32):
you can't even get in the thing. Um. But they
say to scowed back as far as you can and
still drive normally. Uh. And then if you need to
even tilt that seat back a little bit just to
get yourself in that sweet spot. Yeah, if you if
you have to be, if your seat has to be
as close as possible, at least till your your chair back. Yeah.
And then if you can get it further back, but
(19:53):
now you're too low you need if you can raise
your seat automatically, do that too. Marshall Brain even said
get a pad to sit on if you have to.
And it's true. You also want to till your steering
whill so it's facing your chest rather than your head. Yeah,
which is I mean, surely you do that anyway. I
actually went and double checked mind. I was like, okay,
I do. Yeah, I'm a tilt down all the way
(20:16):
just because it's more comfortable. Um, But some people I
think have it upward and it's just sitting there blasting. Yeah,
but it's like you're driving in front of a loaded gun,
with your face in front of a loaded gun. So
you want to do it correctly because you kind of
are uh. For kids, they're a whole host of concerns
for children, and air bags have killed children, uh in
(20:39):
the past, And I mean, go and look up all
the rules yourself. Don't base your life and your children's
safety on anything we say. But I think that uh,
I think the current laws or recommendations are, Um, if
you're under twelve, you you should be in the back
seat period. Yes, like you shouldn't be riding in the
(21:02):
front seat, which is way different than when we were kids.
Oh yeah, you'd be like bouncing around, like with your
hands on the dashboard as like a five year old. Yeah,
it's just crazy how it used to be. Yeah. Man,
it's unbelievable. It's an unbelievable that any of us survived
to this point. Yeah, that's true. But that's when I
(21:22):
got a little bit confused about the passenger side on
off switch because starting at a certain point, they said,
all right, if you want to get an aftermarket switch
built in to turn off your air bag or the
passenger side, you have to fill out this application and
have a specific um qualifying I guess would you call
(21:42):
it a hardship, hardship or just reason? Yeah, a reason,
that's a good way to put it from. And they
range from like medical condition, sure, just to being too
small I think too write, or to having a car
where the back seat was too small to put a
rear facing um a kid seat. Yes. Yeah, if your
car was too small and you had to put your
(22:03):
kids kids seat in the front passenger um in the
front passenger seat, it was actually preferable to not have
the air bag there. Yeah. This is where I why
I got confused is because my pickup truck has that
on off switch factory installed. And I was just like, no,
it's just factory installed in my truck. Talking, well, what
(22:26):
it is is I think all pickup trucks had them.
Even though I could fit a kid's seat because I
have the little the back seat thing, I could fit
a kid's seat rear facing in my truck in the
back seat truck. But yeah, I'm a big, big dully right.
Emily saw one of those on the road. The thing
she's like, does anyone need those extra tires in the
(22:48):
back those four fifties for four fifties, I don't know,
but I was, you know, the duellis with the four
wheels in the back, and it's like it's not for show?
Is that? I think that's actual has a reason. I
think for like heavy towing or heavy hauling. Oh I
think it's for show, is it? I think there's a
real reason. So you know how like no has ever
(23:10):
been off road? I think it's a similar principle, all right,
and and and hold your emails. I realized that like
the hum Vy has been off road. Do you know
the Hummer I'm talking about the H three's that's the yellow,
the bright yellow, and exactly that's never been off road
unless you count like parking up on the curb off
road because you can't fit it into a space out
(23:32):
of my way nature. Um so in I think manufacturers
could actually were allowed to do this. It says ninety
eight in here, but it was when like a pickup
truck could have the manufacturer put an on off switching.
But here's the thing, so we might be confusing you
at this point, like why would you want to turn
(23:54):
your air bag off if it's safe. Again, it depends
on the situation whether your air bag is actually safe.
If you have a child in a rear facing um
child seat that's in the front seat, it's better than
not have your air bag on. Yes, And as a reminder,
Operation Valkyrie was a larger plan. Sorry, you're never gonna
(24:17):
let me live that down, are you? From forty five
minutes ago? Um? Right, it is sometimes more dangerous, so
that on off switch. And the reason why, I mean
like there were people who were like, no, airbags kill
more people than they save. That's not true, but they
they There was this one study that came out of
the University of Georgia in two thousand five. The statistician
(24:39):
I can't remember her name, but she she ran the
numbers using the full data set. So like the numbers
that showed that air bags save lives save lives if
you use only crashes where there is a fatality involved,
so a specific kind of crash, typically a high speed crash,
and air bag is probably gonna say of your life.
(25:00):
What this statistician did um was to take all crashes UM.
I think it was called like crash Worthy Worthiness Data UM.
And it was all crashes, which includes low speed crashes too,
which includes low speed crashes where an air bag went
off and the person would have otherwise survived but they
(25:21):
didn't because the airbag killed them. And she found that
there was a slight increase in the risk of death
from airbags overall. So there's a lot of like competing information,
but it seems like the general consensus is that under
the right conditions, having an air bag in conjunction with
the seat belt, that's important. Well, yeah, it's very important.
(25:43):
Where you're sitting back far enough at least ten inches
away and up high enough, Um, that that is going
to increase your risk or increase your chances of surviving
and otherwise fatal crash. But I think like basically is
the rule of thumb. Like it increases your chances of
surviving by a third. Not bad. So let's take another break, Chuck,
(26:06):
and then we'll come back and we'll talk more airbanks.
(26:35):
So we were talking about kids. Um, if you do
have a kid that's twelve and up or whatever, the
recommendation is, Uh, it's still important obviously always wear that
seat belt, but also have them sitting properly. Um. They
talk a lot about the fact that kids are smaller,
so a lot of times they try to sit up
in their seat more. Um, A lot of times in
a crash, the kid will go up towards the ceiling
(26:58):
the roof of the car because of how small they are.
And so it's really important to have your kid in
that seat belt with their butt all the way against
the back of that seat and like staying there and
shutting up while they're at it, and again back far enough, um,
at least ten inches away from the Yeah, you put
that seat back all the way. Uh, and it might
(27:19):
be like I can't see as much, but again, just
tell them to shut up. You're looking after their safety. Actually,
what I what I meant to say was if an
air bag goes off a child is so light that
it could lift them up in their seat. Yeah, if
they're too close and not positioning correctly. That's right. Okay, Um,
I ran across something. Surprisingly. Did you know that it's
(27:41):
not um mandated for cars to have airbags in Canada?
In Canada, it is in the US, but not Canada.
Didn't that surprise you? That is surprising. So that's not
a law for new cars. Huh, it's like an option.
I guess they don't. It's not mandated that new cars
have bags. Say I want a cigarette lighter in an ashtray,
(28:02):
No air bag? Right. Um. So you if you paid
attention to the news at all, you may have heard
about airbag recalls, especially ones that were made by the
Japanese from Takata. Man, that's a big problem. I think
something like thirty seven million recalls cars have been recalled. Yeah,
(28:22):
it said the nhs I did this in the Pendel.
The nht s A said it's the largest and most
complex safety recall in US history because Takata made airbags
for everybody. Yeah, and they made air bags that could
possibly send metal shards flying into your face. Yeah. I
(28:43):
was reading about a girl who was man. She was
like a cheerleader from Oklahoma who had just graduated, was
like had her whole life ahead of her. Um, she
was just just as tad as it gets. She went
to go pick up her little brother. Um. Her name
was Ashley Parham. She wanted to go pick up her
(29:04):
little brother from football practice, and I guess like got
into a tiny fender bender and her air bag went off.
Well that shouldn't have killed her in and of itself.
But it turns out that Takata air bags start to
degrade over time, that UM sodium as i'd actually becomes explosive.
So when it goes off after its age a certain
(29:26):
amount of time, it becomes super explosive and it can
actually blow the canister that holds the air bag part
and it shoots shrapnel out, and apparently it got her
in the neck and it was so such a traumatic
injury that at first they thought she'd been shot and
she died. You know, they're in her car from the
air bag. This is the There's millions of cars out
(29:49):
there on the road right now with the same potential
going on. Yeah, I saw fifteen deaths UM and then
I saw none of those. At twenty I saw like
twenty three I think. Yea. So where in that range
as the amount of people that have been killed just
from the Takata airbags, not airbags in general. Yeah, yeah,
the the recalled air bags and hundreds and hundreds of
(30:09):
people injured. H And like you said, they go across UM.
I don't know every manufacturer, but most Yeah, and not
just American automobiles or Japanese even, but that like there
was an Australian one that I saw is being recalled
like everyone around the world used Takata air bags and
they are faulty. Yeah, and like you should have gotten
(30:31):
to notice by now, but take it seriously, um, And
I know that it's been slow with the fixing of
it and the rollout of you know, the ones that work.
It's not like an instantaneous thing to fix thirty seven
million cars, you know. But even if your air bag
is working correctly, there's still Remember I said that air
bags are kind of a work in progress. Uh, And
(30:53):
part of his educating the public, another part of it
is just making air bags better at what they do.
One of the major flaws of air bags is that
they are the closer you get to a head on
collision to at twelve o'clock collision, Um, the the better
they protect you. But the caveat to that is depending
(31:15):
on how fast you're going. So if you're going really slow,
they can actually be really problematic because you may not
even have your seatbelt on, in which case you don't
want to hit an air bag without a seatbelt lot,
especially at low speeds. Um, it can mess you up
pretty good. Yeah, because what you're doing there, Uh. In
case that doesn't make much sense. You are very quickly
(31:36):
going well within that ten inch zone because of no
seat belt keeping you back. And then remember it kind
of like an air bag deploying too late, it can
shoot your head backwards and just mess you up pretty good. Um,
after that, when you have a seatbelt on, or if
you have a seatbelt on, even if it's ten to
fifty up to a certain point, say I think like
(31:56):
sixty kilometers per hour, I'm not sure what that is.
A miles p um. You are pretty good. You're pretty
good with your with your air bag. And then after
that the crash becomes so forceful that it can actually
mess with the air bag deployment system and the airbag
might not even go off. So there's actually just a
(32:17):
window that airbags work well in. And one of the
big challenges in the industry now is figuring out how
to make them work of the time in really high
speed crashes too. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty cool in
a testament to where we are with safety in the
world now, and especially in the United States, that they're
not just like, yep, got got the air bags figured out,
(32:39):
Let's move on along, right, and they're constantly working on it. Supposedly,
the National Transportation Safety Board really resisted putting on off
switch on cars for a long time because they were
afraid that it was going to be Um, it was
just gonna be an easy fix for problematic air bags
where people just turn off the airbags, rather than forcing
(32:59):
the automotive industry to put more money in time and
thought into making better air bags. Yeah, which is uh,
you know, it's it's a risky, gambly way of getting
things done, but it's the way. Yeah, and they, um,
they work best. Uh, like you said it head on
because the bumper if you listen to our was it
crumple zones? Yeah, I think so. Is that a whole podcast? Um,
(33:24):
you know that front bumper and the engine and the
whole front of your car takes so much of that
impact that by the time it gets to you, it's
it's really really helping the air bag out. Um. Side
impact is I think there are more side impact accidents
and more deadly ones because you get t boned and
it's there is no engine, there is no bumper, just
(33:45):
that thin door. It happens much faster, yeah, super fast.
So there are side curtain air bags now on I
think virtually I think all new cars, right, Um, and
different depending on the manufacturer. When they were first trying
to figure out how to implement these, they had some
different strategies. And a BMW I think actually put it
(34:06):
in the door. Volvo I think put it in the
back seat, in the side of the back of the
front seat. Yeah, yeah, the driver's seat. Uh. And they've
certainly helped a lot. And now I mean some cars
these days there are air bags all up in them. Right.
There's something called the front center airbag that comes up
in between the front passengers so they don't like three
(34:28):
stooge knock their heads together in the middle of this. Um,
there's knee passenger knee airbags that blow up around the dashboard. Um.
There's inflatable seat belts they're working on, which is smart. Um,
there's a lot of air bags that they're they're basically
just trying to turn it into one giant marshmallow, which
is smart. But as long as the giant marshmallows don't
(34:50):
also like knock your head off of your your body accidentally. Right,
that's kind of the big challenge. Right now, I have
safe everyone where that see belt. Yeah. Oh, and one
more thing. Um, you want to you know, how you
always hear ten and two is how you're supposed to drive,
not anymore. I think I've said it before. You want
to drive at nine and three because at ten and two,
(35:14):
if the airbag goes off, that hot gas can d
glove your hands. You love t gloving. It's your favorite
horrific accident. I'm a solid, solid nooner with my left wrist,
you're a dead man, or a solid six o'clock with
with my thumb and my forefinger. You can't do that.
(35:34):
You have to do better than that. I know it
sucks to have like nine and nine and three, but
I'm telling you you have much more control. Come on,
I'm doing pretty good. I've never been in a bit
bad wreck. It's good, yeah, knocking all all kinds of wood.
So Um, if you want to know more about airbags,
go read up on it. Don't try to deploy them yourselves.
(35:56):
It's a terrible idea. And since I said that, it's
time for listening mail. Um. Actually I was in a
pretty decent wreck when my brother was driving. I think
I detailed that in previous shows. So if you're out there, jeep, Yeah,
if you're out there typing. But what about the jeep incident, which,
weirdly my rental house right now that I'm in, Well,
(36:16):
i'm working on my househouse is a jeep, Yeah it is.
It's an old brown jeep. It's like several hundred yards
from where that wreck took place. Yeah, and it was
raining really bad the other day when I was going
home and at that very same spot, it's just a wash.
It's like a river running over the road. I'm like,
that's that's where it happened. Wow, that's where you hydroplane?
(36:38):
Still dangerous over there? Do you like shake or anything
as you go past it? No? No, I'm good. Okay,
I said, just send a picture to my brother and
make fun of him. I'm gonna call this I don't
like Dr SEUs. That's you speaking or the author. It's
the author. Because remember in the show we said who
doesn't like Dr SEUs? Sofia Cook does not. She gives
(37:00):
good reasons. I always hated those books as a kid.
The pictures disturbed me, like what were those things? My
mother hated him, which is why I never saw the
books until I was at a friend's house. She refused
to buy them. When I asked her later. She said
the poetry was juvenile, uh, and unimaginative. She was an
English major. Well that too. For example, Dr SEUs would
(37:21):
just add the same word multiple times just to meet
the cadence. This is what fifth graders do when they
can't keep up with more word, When they can't come
up with more words, she said. I know, because I
take poetry to fifth graders. She said, for example, from
red fish bluefish. Uh, some come a long long way.
Some are very very bad. All he does is yell, yell, yell.
(37:42):
He likes to drink and drink and drink. It's pretty
juvenile when you think about it. Oh, is that an
actual one? Red fish bluefish? Yeah, yeah, she's She's citing
that as an example. She said. Then there's the lazy
poetry method. Uh. If you can't find a word to rhyme,
just make one up. Uh. Cans rhymes with zan's bump. Well,
(38:07):
of course you have to make up a wump black?
What about black? No, she's saying black. I know that.
I don't know. I'm feeling defensive right now for some
weird I'm a book editor now, guys. I hate this
stuff more now than when I was a kid and
felt and just felt disturbed by the strange drawings. I
just thought i'd weigh in, because not everyone likes Dr Seuss.
(38:28):
He happened to be in the right place at the
right time. Book publishing is a fickle and strange business.
Many fantastic writers never see the light of day, and
some truly author awful authors make it big. Uh that
awful she she's bagging on fifty shades of gray. I
won't say what she said. Thanks for listening, guys, and
(38:48):
thanks for the stuff. I'll always keep coming back. That
is from Sophia Cook. I read a book a nook
and all that cowboy good. Thanks a lot, Sophia, So
her doctor seused to her is like the way I
was raised with Chevy Chase So who just made another
appearance in this episode. Well, if you want to get
(39:10):
in touch with us to let us know about someone
you were raised to dislike strongly by your parents. If
you don't use the H word here, you can visit
Stuff you Should Know dot com. Check out our social
links on that site. You can check me out at
the Josh Clarkway dot com. And you can send Chuck,
Jerry and Me an email to Stuff podcast at how
stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands
(39:35):
of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot Com. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's
Jerry and this is Airbags Airbags. Addition, I'm surprised we
haven't done this one yet. It seems so stuff you
(00:22):
should Know and it's just been sitting out there ready
to explode in your face. Yes, hopefully in the best
way possible. Uh. And I also had a bit of
a hard time because this article we should mention is
from Marshall Brain, who is the original inventor of the
(00:42):
house Stuff Works website ninety years ago in his k Yeah,
so he used to write everything and then boy it's
been through so many changes since then. But this article
that was uh, Like he keeps talking about like looking
forward to and what's in or for its, So it's
kind of hard to find out what was still legit
(01:03):
and what wasn't. But I got the nuts and bolts
of it. I think what's weird is it seems like
a lot of the regulation is exactly the same. Yeah,
which is I mean, I like I ran in the
same thing too, Like I I go look up stuff,
and I'd be like, well, wait, they're saying the same thing,
but this says two thousands sixteen or two thousand eighteen
or something. I don't think regulations have changed all that much.
(01:23):
I think you're right. I got tripped up a little
bit with the UM factory installed off switch for passenger side,
and I finally figured all that out. I think, save it.
It's gold so exciting. Just wait, what's weird? Is this
is the stuff you should know? Topic? Um? I just
realized how boring stuff you should know can be. Chuck.
(01:47):
Let's start with history, shall we. Yeah. So, apparently when
I think of air bags, I think of like the nineties,
that's airbag erra to me. Um, no, that there have
been airbags and cars in the United States going back
to the seventies as far as like mass produced, commercially
(02:08):
available air bags, especially driver's side, And then I think
even a little later in the seventies, um passenger side
airbags came around. I had no idea. You know, well,
you hate Chevy Chase, right. Have you ever seen Vacation
the first one? There's an airbag in there that Yeah,
he jumps over the gulch and crashes his car, and
(02:29):
as he's opening his door, the air quote unquote airbag
goes off, which is clearly like a trash bag, and
it's clearly coming from outside the car on the ground
because he opens the door and it comes up really quick.
Like they couldn't figure out a way even in a
three to make it look like it came out of
the steering right. The director was like, is that what
an airbag looks like? In the special effects guys like
(02:51):
do you know what an airbag looks like? Yeah? And
do you have any more blow? Um? I don't know
if that was Chevy Chase base or just making movie
in the eighties, making movies in the eighties. The cocaine reference.
Oh yeah, that was everything in the eighties. Um. But
apparently when was it nineteen fifty three that an engineering
(03:13):
tech from Pennsylvania named John Hetrick put a patent on
a design for what he called a safety cushion assembly
for automohive automotive vehicles. He said, automohive. Maybe that's where
he went wrong because he took it to Ford and
GM and Chrysler, and of course they were all like me.
If you listen to our Pinto episode They're like, uh,
(03:36):
we got cars that are killing, burning people alive. You
think we care about your air bags? They there, he
just got crickets back. Yeah, you got nothing. And it
stayed that way until another guy from the Pinto episode,
Ralph nader Um, wrote in his book Unsafe at Any
Speed that air bags, along with seat belts and conjunction
of seat belts, would save lives big time. And he
(03:58):
was right, actually even still to this day. Um the
sweet spot for surviving a terrible crash is seat belt
in an air bag, both working perfectly to save your life.
But the idea behind um air bags was well, seat belts,
(04:19):
I think became uh um part of federal regulations in
the United States and five sixty seven as an installed
but like no one war him right, there was no
law that said you had to wear them for many,
many years, and so only about a quarter of Americans
wore them. So people were still dying in carrex even
(04:40):
though their cars had seat belts, because they weren't wearing
them because they were idiots. So people said, well, maybe
we'll put in these airbags. These are passive safety features.
A seat belt is technically an active safety feature because
unless you have one of those where like you'd open
the door in the yeah, and then you close it
(05:01):
and go over. You forgot about those. Even still you
had to do the lap belt part yourself. So that's
technically act. You have to do something to put it on.
Air bag is different where you are just sitting there
and it does it whether you want it to or not.
It's a passive safety feature. So they said, well, maybe
if we put air bags in, it will save lives,
and so they started putting air bags in. Yeah, and
(05:23):
then I'm sure even back then there were people that
like government regulating, socialists trying to save me. Yeah, I
can't even turn off this air bag. It's a good
whale and Jennings, I wish I could do a good
whale and Jennings, I wouldn't be doing the show. Let's
be out on the road really with my act. Oh yeah,
(05:43):
that hurts. I'd bring you along, okay, you'd be little whale,
I'd say, whale and Jennings, Um, so I think, uh,
starting in what like, they started putting them out and
finally in the seventies and the eighties. But when they
sign is when they said finally all new cars gotta
(06:09):
have these air bags. Yeah, for for the frontal airbags
at least for the driver and the passenger side funnel
air Yeah, it was still a little bit before the
side impact bags were mandatory. And they said, okay, well,
everybody saved. The world is saved because we have airbags now,
so no one's ever going to die in a crash.
And then people started saying, wait a minute, um, I
(06:29):
I just read about this person who was an a
fender bender and their air bag went off and it
killed them. What about that? And so they started looking
into airbags a little bit and they said, oh, okay,
well maybe this is something what you call a work
in progress. And still to this day, air bred air
bag technology, this passive safety technology is a work in
progress because part of airbag technology is also educating the
(06:53):
public and how to use it correctly. Because an air
bag is not a soft little pillow that you you're like, well,
after this crash, I guess I let's take a nap here.
It's a it's a it's basically like a punch to
your face. YEA that inflates very quickly, um, and is
meant to keep you from eating the steering column, which
(07:13):
apparently you can do and a high enough speed crash
your seatbelt. Even when you're wearing it correctly and you're
sitting where you're supposed to be, you can still be
forced into the steering column. The point of the air bag,
especially for the driver, is that you, Um, it provides
a barrier between you and the steering calm. It's not
a comfortable barrier, but it's a barrier that will keep
(07:34):
your chest from caving in. Yeah. And obviously people are
more at risk if you're you know, let's say you're
a little short stuff and you gotta hike that seat
way forward in order to drive, you're that much closer
physically to the steering column. Um. And so the air
bag is meant to He's spent to help everyone, but
especially like people that are too too close for comfort. Yes,
(07:58):
but if you're sitting too clo to the steering column,
it can hurt you. Yeah, I think, what do they say,
get yourself ten inches back at least you? Oh wait,
we're getting weight ahead of ourselves here. Ten inches everyone,
it is ten inches. You're right. So, um, let's talk
about let's talk about the original UM idea for the
air bag. It was you take a thing of compressed
(08:21):
gas and you have an attached to like basically a
balloon or a bladder or something like that, or in vacation,
a hefty bag, and under the right circumstances like maybe
a crumple, that that compressed gases triggered and it blows
up the the balloon and you're saved. The problem is
(08:42):
is there's a lot of issues with this setup. Number one,
it doesn't work fast enough. The compressed gas still does
not work fast enough. This is original technology, like the
stuff they were working with in the seventies. They didn't
They had an idea that they wanted an inflatable bag,
but they didn't know how to do it quite yet.
(09:03):
So the original idea was compressed gas. You know, like um,
like a night like you're like a whippet, a giant
whipp it, like your whippe, you know, like what I've
got in my on the desk, whip it you do
in between during ad breaks with your cracker. Imagine the
cracker and a giant whipp it in your steering column. Yeah, okay,
(09:24):
that was basically the idea first and so one that
that whipp it wouldn't inflate the bag. Fast enough. That's
a big problem because if it doesn't inflate fast enough,
not only does it not keep you from hitting the
steering column, it can actually make it worse. There's this
I think it's like ten Amazing Facts or something about
airbags on Gelopnik and they have a video on there
(09:47):
and side by side it is side by side of
crash tests with the crash test dummies. Um. Yes, yeah,
they were like, we were so tired of your music
in this car, so they they it's side by side
with crash has dummies and one is an airbag that
deploys and in the right time. The other one is
(10:10):
an airbag that deploys late. And the one that deploys late,
the the dummies head goes forward right and then right
when it's about to hit the steering wheel, the air
black airbag inflates and it crushes the guy's head backwards
at like a ninety degree angle to where it's supposed
to be. And um, you're just like, oh, that's what
(10:32):
happens if the airbag deploys late. So the timing is
really everything. So the idea that it would deploy late
or not fast enough was not only not good enough,
it was actually dangerous. Yeah, because the whole idea here
and sweet Marshall brain includes a whole bit on you know,
the physics of a car crash. But it's worth noting that,
you know, when you're driving and you hit something that's
(10:54):
um with your car, like head on, let's say, Uh,
everything wants to come to a complete stop that's in
that car, including your body in your face. Uh, so
you've you've only got a certain a very very very
small amount of time to get that bag fully safely inflated.
As as your head is doing. It's final like alright,
(11:16):
this is where I want to stop, right exactly, It's
final resting point. So let's take a break and we'll
talk more about the physics of the car crash after all. Right, So, Chuck,
(11:52):
you're saying, like, in a car crash, the car stops
almost instantly from everything I've seen, Like it's it's so
close to instantaneous that the shorthand is it stops instantly,
but you're still moving forward. That's the point of your
seatbelt is to hold you in place. But the seatbelt
can cause all sorts of damage in and of itself,
(12:13):
but it's still better than just flying on buckled into
the steering column. Yeah, but like you can't um. It
takes time to stop everything, right, it's it is not instantaneous. No,
if it were instantaneous, you would crumple like the car. Right,
So you want they you want to be slowed down
(12:34):
and in a in a way that's so fast that
you don't hit the steering column but in but is
gentle enough that it doesn't just like cut you in
two bas Okay, it is extremely tricky. So what they
found out is that if you inflate an air bag,
you have to First of all, the air bag is
(12:56):
big enough that it basically has the distance between you
and the steering column that it's trying to protect you from. Yeah,
which is good, but that also means your face is
that much closer, which shortens that time. Even more shortens
the time that it can it can deploy in and again,
remember when you're talking about compressed gas, it just wasn't
fast enough. So they figured out that you need to
(13:18):
have an air bag basically get the input that a
crash is happening, and then deploy within about thirty thousands
of a second. So if you take one second, you
chop it into one thousand equal parts. You would tick
off thirty of them and still have nine hundred and
seventy left in that second before that airbag has done deploying.
(13:42):
That's how fast they have to deploy, which is astounding.
It's amazing that they can do that, but they can
do it. They finally figured it out, and the way
that they figured it out was instead of using compressed gas,
using basically the same thing that they used to power rockets,
basically solid rocket fuel. Yeah. I mean it's just that
you it that Um was that vice you said that
one articles a scientific American? Yeah, yeah, where they basically said,
(14:06):
for all practical purposes, is a small explosion goes off?
Oh that one was wired Oh yeah wired y Yeah,
like a small explosion goes off in your steering wheel
or I guess on the passenger side in the in
the dashboard to make this happen, And that in and
of itself is can be dangerous. It definitely can be.
And um, they've actually kind of got the chemistry down
(14:26):
so that, uh, it's as non dangerous as possible when
everything's working correctly. But they start with something called sodium
as i'd, which is basically um, sodium and nitrogen compound,
and when it's just sitting there in its powdered form,
it's pretty stable. It's fine. But if you apply enough
(14:48):
heat to it, I think three d degrees celsius, which
is pretty hot, it it breaks down. It decomposes, and
when it decomposes it breaks into two different things. One
is night drogen gas and the other is um sodium,
just plain old sodium metals. And the nitrogen gas gets
way bigger than the little handful of sodium aside that
(15:11):
it grew from. The nitrogen is what is in that bag,
essentially like filling it up so quickly. The nitrogen gas
that that grows, Yeah, but isn't a side sodium aside toxic,
so they have to add other things in there. So
the sodium aside itself isn't toxic. But the sodium metals
that is a byproduct incid ignites, they're not actually toxic either.
(15:34):
But when they combine with water, like water vapor in
the air, it becomes sodium hydroxide a K A LIE.
So you don't want LIE flowing through the passenger compartment
because you're gonna get chemical burns right after your air
bag goes off. So they add other stuff like potassium
nitrate I believe to um combine with the salt the
(15:55):
sodium um to render it inert and then actually produce
even more nitrogen. Right, So it's filling up a bag
made of nylon fabric that has folded into that steering well.
I think there's like talcum powder and stuff to keep
it supple. Yeah, And if you've ever I mean, I've
never had an airbag deploy, thankfully while I was in
a car. But uh, I know that powder is like
(16:17):
a big part of it, right from what I hear.
That's what I hear. Uh. And then there's a sensor
like here's the thing. Everything has to go perfectly because
you don't want it to go off when it shouldn't um,
because that's no good. So I think it has to be.
Is it still accurate to say it's ten to fifteen
miles an hour hitting a fixed like wall? Essentially? That
(16:39):
was I think that's all right? Is it? They've decompressed
that since then they have it, It's it's much less
um rigid. Okay, So when you when your car hits
something and stop, suddenly, there's an accelerometer that's measuring the
deceleration and like five different factors. Okay, yeah, like you
(16:59):
just went from thirty to zero so fast. We know
that you've been in a wreck. And it's measuring not
just this direction, but also that direction to that direction
to make sure that what's going on is an actual
like front frontal crash. It sends this data, this raw
data to a micro controller, a little tiny computer in
your car. Actually that's part of the air bag um assembly,
(17:22):
and the microprocessor runs this data through an algorithm. The
algorithm decides whether it's a front and crash or not,
and if it is, then it deploys the air bag.
What it does is it sets off an electric circuit
which goes and ignites a little charge which blows up
that sodium hayzide, which then blows into nitrogen gas. Happens
(17:43):
in thirty thousands of a second. Yeah, Like, if you
ever I mean, we've certainly gone over enough amazing like
inventions of mankind through the show. But if you ever
doubt just how brilliant human kind is, Like look at
the air bag. Especially engineers, you know, unbelieve off to
to walk that line of doing this safely because they
(18:03):
could have given up and been like, cheez, I don't
think we can. There's no way we can get it
done that fast safely. Yeah, Like, let's think of another idea.
But they were like, no, let's stick with the air
bag naders on us. They said, go get the engineers.
So that's the new way of doing it. Apparently the
old way, according to Canada's transportation website, there would be
(18:24):
a little hollow tube with a ball bearing held in
place at the end by a magnet. Really, and when
the car was hit hard enough, the ball bearing would
be jarred loose from its position. Roll down the right, yeah,
roll down the tube, and then um complete an electrical
(18:44):
circuit that would send the ignition or ignite the ignition charge.
That sounds too much like a Rube Goldberg, which definitely does.
I think they're like, we can improve on Yeah, geez,
that's scary. Um all right, I guess we should talk
a little bit about the the ten inches and the
safety concerns. So apparently placing yourself ten inches from you're
(19:11):
steering the front of your steering will the the center
I guess, or that thing pops out is plenty of
room because they say the first the risk zone is
two to three inches. Uh, So they say get back
at least ten inches. And if you're like my mom
has a little short stuff, and like every time I
go to move her car, I'm just like, are you
kidding me? And I'm not even big, and I'm like,
(19:32):
you can't even get in the thing. Um. But they
say to scowed back as far as you can and
still drive normally. Uh. And then if you need to
even tilt that seat back a little bit just to
get yourself in that sweet spot. Yeah, if you if
you have to be, if your seat has to be
as close as possible, at least till your your chair back. Yeah.
And then if you can get it further back, but
(19:53):
now you're too low you need if you can raise
your seat automatically, do that too. Marshall Brain even said
get a pad to sit on if you have to.
And it's true. You also want to till your steering
whill so it's facing your chest rather than your head. Yeah,
which is I mean, surely you do that anyway. I
actually went and double checked mind. I was like, okay,
I do. Yeah, I'm a tilt down all the way
(20:16):
just because it's more comfortable. Um, But some people I
think have it upward and it's just sitting there blasting. Yeah,
but it's like you're driving in front of a loaded gun,
with your face in front of a loaded gun. So
you want to do it correctly because you kind of
are uh. For kids, they're a whole host of concerns
for children, and air bags have killed children, uh in
(20:39):
the past, And I mean, go and look up all
the rules yourself. Don't base your life and your children's
safety on anything we say. But I think that uh,
I think the current laws or recommendations are, Um, if
you're under twelve, you you should be in the back
seat period. Yes, like you shouldn't be riding in the
(21:02):
front seat, which is way different than when we were kids.
Oh yeah, you'd be like bouncing around, like with your
hands on the dashboard as like a five year old. Yeah,
it's just crazy how it used to be. Yeah. Man,
it's unbelievable. It's an unbelievable that any of us survived
to this point. Yeah, that's true. But that's when I
(21:22):
got a little bit confused about the passenger side on
off switch because starting at a certain point, they said,
all right, if you want to get an aftermarket switch
built in to turn off your air bag or the
passenger side, you have to fill out this application and
have a specific um qualifying I guess would you call
(21:42):
it a hardship, hardship or just reason? Yeah, a reason,
that's a good way to put it from. And they
range from like medical condition, sure, just to being too
small I think too write, or to having a car
where the back seat was too small to put a
rear facing um a kid seat. Yes. Yeah, if your
car was too small and you had to put your
(22:03):
kids kids seat in the front passenger um in the
front passenger seat, it was actually preferable to not have
the air bag there. Yeah. This is where I why
I got confused is because my pickup truck has that
on off switch factory installed. And I was just like, no,
it's just factory installed in my truck. Talking, well, what
(22:26):
it is is I think all pickup trucks had them.
Even though I could fit a kid's seat because I
have the little the back seat thing, I could fit
a kid's seat rear facing in my truck in the
back seat truck. But yeah, I'm a big, big dully right.
Emily saw one of those on the road. The thing
she's like, does anyone need those extra tires in the
(22:48):
back those four fifties for four fifties, I don't know,
but I was, you know, the duellis with the four
wheels in the back, and it's like it's not for show?
Is that? I think that's actual has a reason. I
think for like heavy towing or heavy hauling. Oh I
think it's for show, is it? I think there's a
real reason. So you know how like no has ever
(23:10):
been off road? I think it's a similar principle, all right,
and and and hold your emails. I realized that like
the hum Vy has been off road. Do you know
the Hummer I'm talking about the H three's that's the yellow,
the bright yellow, and exactly that's never been off road
unless you count like parking up on the curb off
road because you can't fit it into a space out
(23:32):
of my way nature. Um so in I think manufacturers
could actually were allowed to do this. It says ninety
eight in here, but it was when like a pickup
truck could have the manufacturer put an on off switching.
But here's the thing, so we might be confusing you
at this point, like why would you want to turn
(23:54):
your air bag off if it's safe. Again, it depends
on the situation whether your air bag is actually safe.
If you have a child in a rear facing um
child seat that's in the front seat, it's better than
not have your air bag on. Yes, And as a reminder,
Operation Valkyrie was a larger plan. Sorry, you're never gonna
(24:17):
let me live that down, are you? From forty five
minutes ago? Um? Right, it is sometimes more dangerous, so
that on off switch. And the reason why, I mean
like there were people who were like, no, airbags kill
more people than they save. That's not true, but they
they There was this one study that came out of
the University of Georgia in two thousand five. The statistician
(24:39):
I can't remember her name, but she she ran the
numbers using the full data set. So like the numbers
that showed that air bags save lives save lives if
you use only crashes where there is a fatality involved,
so a specific kind of crash, typically a high speed crash,
and air bag is probably gonna say of your life.
(25:00):
What this statistician did um was to take all crashes UM.
I think it was called like crash Worthy Worthiness Data UM.
And it was all crashes, which includes low speed crashes too,
which includes low speed crashes where an air bag went
off and the person would have otherwise survived but they
(25:21):
didn't because the airbag killed them. And she found that
there was a slight increase in the risk of death
from airbags overall. So there's a lot of like competing information,
but it seems like the general consensus is that under
the right conditions, having an air bag in conjunction with
the seat belt, that's important. Well, yeah, it's very important.
(25:43):
Where you're sitting back far enough at least ten inches
away and up high enough, Um, that that is going
to increase your risk or increase your chances of surviving
and otherwise fatal crash. But I think like basically is
the rule of thumb. Like it increases your chances of
surviving by a third. Not bad. So let's take another break, Chuck,
(26:06):
and then we'll come back and we'll talk more airbanks.
(26:35):
So we were talking about kids. Um, if you do
have a kid that's twelve and up or whatever, the
recommendation is, Uh, it's still important obviously always wear that
seat belt, but also have them sitting properly. Um. They
talk a lot about the fact that kids are smaller,
so a lot of times they try to sit up
in their seat more. Um, A lot of times in
a crash, the kid will go up towards the ceiling
(26:58):
the roof of the car because of how small they are.
And so it's really important to have your kid in
that seat belt with their butt all the way against
the back of that seat and like staying there and
shutting up while they're at it, and again back far enough, um,
at least ten inches away from the Yeah, you put
that seat back all the way. Uh, and it might
(27:19):
be like I can't see as much, but again, just
tell them to shut up. You're looking after their safety. Actually,
what I what I meant to say was if an
air bag goes off a child is so light that
it could lift them up in their seat. Yeah, if
they're too close and not positioning correctly. That's right. Okay, Um,
I ran across something. Surprisingly. Did you know that it's
(27:41):
not um mandated for cars to have airbags in Canada?
In Canada, it is in the US, but not Canada.
Didn't that surprise you? That is surprising. So that's not
a law for new cars. Huh, it's like an option.
I guess they don't. It's not mandated that new cars
have bags. Say I want a cigarette lighter in an ashtray,
(28:02):
No air bag? Right. Um. So you if you paid
attention to the news at all, you may have heard
about airbag recalls, especially ones that were made by the
Japanese from Takata. Man, that's a big problem. I think
something like thirty seven million recalls cars have been recalled. Yeah,
(28:22):
it said the nhs I did this in the Pendel.
The nht s A said it's the largest and most
complex safety recall in US history because Takata made airbags
for everybody. Yeah, and they made air bags that could
possibly send metal shards flying into your face. Yeah. I
(28:43):
was reading about a girl who was man. She was
like a cheerleader from Oklahoma who had just graduated, was
like had her whole life ahead of her. Um, she
was just just as tad as it gets. She went
to go pick up her little brother. Um. Her name
was Ashley Parham. She wanted to go pick up her
(29:04):
little brother from football practice, and I guess like got
into a tiny fender bender and her air bag went off.
Well that shouldn't have killed her in and of itself.
But it turns out that Takata air bags start to
degrade over time, that UM sodium as i'd actually becomes explosive.
So when it goes off after its age a certain
(29:26):
amount of time, it becomes super explosive and it can
actually blow the canister that holds the air bag part
and it shoots shrapnel out, and apparently it got her
in the neck and it was so such a traumatic
injury that at first they thought she'd been shot and
she died. You know, they're in her car from the
air bag. This is the There's millions of cars out
(29:49):
there on the road right now with the same potential
going on. Yeah, I saw fifteen deaths UM and then
I saw none of those. At twenty I saw like
twenty three I think. Yea. So where in that range
as the amount of people that have been killed just
from the Takata airbags, not airbags in general. Yeah, yeah,
the the recalled air bags and hundreds and hundreds of
(30:09):
people injured. H And like you said, they go across UM.
I don't know every manufacturer, but most Yeah, and not
just American automobiles or Japanese even, but that like there
was an Australian one that I saw is being recalled
like everyone around the world used Takata air bags and
they are faulty. Yeah, and like you should have gotten
(30:31):
to notice by now, but take it seriously, um, And
I know that it's been slow with the fixing of
it and the rollout of you know, the ones that work.
It's not like an instantaneous thing to fix thirty seven
million cars, you know. But even if your air bag
is working correctly, there's still Remember I said that air
bags are kind of a work in progress. Uh, And
(30:53):
part of his educating the public, another part of it
is just making air bags better at what they do.
One of the major flaws of air bags is that
they are the closer you get to a head on
collision to at twelve o'clock collision, Um, the the better
they protect you. But the caveat to that is depending
(31:15):
on how fast you're going. So if you're going really slow,
they can actually be really problematic because you may not
even have your seatbelt on, in which case you don't
want to hit an air bag without a seatbelt lot,
especially at low speeds. Um, it can mess you up
pretty good. Yeah, because what you're doing there, Uh. In
case that doesn't make much sense. You are very quickly
(31:36):
going well within that ten inch zone because of no
seat belt keeping you back. And then remember it kind
of like an air bag deploying too late, it can
shoot your head backwards and just mess you up pretty good. Um,
after that, when you have a seatbelt on, or if
you have a seatbelt on, even if it's ten to
fifty up to a certain point, say I think like
(31:56):
sixty kilometers per hour, I'm not sure what that is.
A miles p um. You are pretty good. You're pretty
good with your with your air bag. And then after
that the crash becomes so forceful that it can actually
mess with the air bag deployment system and the airbag
might not even go off. So there's actually just a
(32:17):
window that airbags work well in. And one of the
big challenges in the industry now is figuring out how
to make them work of the time in really high
speed crashes too. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty cool in
a testament to where we are with safety in the
world now, and especially in the United States, that they're
not just like, yep, got got the air bags figured out,
(32:39):
Let's move on along, right, and they're constantly working on it. Supposedly,
the National Transportation Safety Board really resisted putting on off
switch on cars for a long time because they were
afraid that it was going to be Um, it was
just gonna be an easy fix for problematic air bags
where people just turn off the airbags, rather than forcing
(32:59):
the automotive industry to put more money in time and
thought into making better air bags. Yeah, which is uh,
you know, it's it's a risky, gambly way of getting
things done, but it's the way. Yeah, and they, um,
they work best. Uh, like you said it head on
because the bumper if you listen to our was it
crumple zones? Yeah, I think so. Is that a whole podcast? Um,
(33:24):
you know that front bumper and the engine and the
whole front of your car takes so much of that
impact that by the time it gets to you, it's
it's really really helping the air bag out. Um. Side
impact is I think there are more side impact accidents
and more deadly ones because you get t boned and
it's there is no engine, there is no bumper, just
(33:45):
that thin door. It happens much faster, yeah, super fast.
So there are side curtain air bags now on I
think virtually I think all new cars, right, Um, and
different depending on the manufacturer. When they were first trying
to figure out how to implement these, they had some
different strategies. And a BMW I think actually put it
(34:06):
in the door. Volvo I think put it in the
back seat, in the side of the back of the
front seat. Yeah, yeah, the driver's seat. Uh. And they've
certainly helped a lot. And now I mean some cars
these days there are air bags all up in them. Right.
There's something called the front center airbag that comes up
in between the front passengers so they don't like three
(34:28):
stooge knock their heads together in the middle of this. Um,
there's knee passenger knee airbags that blow up around the dashboard. Um.
There's inflatable seat belts they're working on, which is smart. Um,
there's a lot of air bags that they're they're basically
just trying to turn it into one giant marshmallow, which
is smart. But as long as the giant marshmallows don't
(34:50):
also like knock your head off of your your body accidentally. Right,
that's kind of the big challenge. Right now, I have
safe everyone where that see belt. Yeah. Oh, and one
more thing. Um, you want to you know, how you
always hear ten and two is how you're supposed to drive,
not anymore. I think I've said it before. You want
to drive at nine and three because at ten and two,
(35:14):
if the airbag goes off, that hot gas can d
glove your hands. You love t gloving. It's your favorite
horrific accident. I'm a solid, solid nooner with my left wrist,
you're a dead man, or a solid six o'clock with
with my thumb and my forefinger. You can't do that.
(35:34):
You have to do better than that. I know it
sucks to have like nine and nine and three, but
I'm telling you you have much more control. Come on,
I'm doing pretty good. I've never been in a bit
bad wreck. It's good, yeah, knocking all all kinds of wood.
So Um, if you want to know more about airbags,
go read up on it. Don't try to deploy them yourselves.
(35:56):
It's a terrible idea. And since I said that, it's
time for listening mail. Um. Actually I was in a
pretty decent wreck when my brother was driving. I think
I detailed that in previous shows. So if you're out there, jeep, Yeah,
if you're out there typing. But what about the jeep incident, which,
weirdly my rental house right now that I'm in, Well,
(36:16):
i'm working on my househouse is a jeep, Yeah it is.
It's an old brown jeep. It's like several hundred yards
from where that wreck took place. Yeah, and it was
raining really bad the other day when I was going
home and at that very same spot, it's just a wash.
It's like a river running over the road. I'm like,
that's that's where it happened. Wow, that's where you hydroplane?
(36:38):
Still dangerous over there? Do you like shake or anything
as you go past it? No? No, I'm good. Okay,
I said, just send a picture to my brother and
make fun of him. I'm gonna call this I don't
like Dr SEUs. That's you speaking or the author. It's
the author. Because remember in the show we said who
doesn't like Dr SEUs? Sofia Cook does not. She gives
(37:00):
good reasons. I always hated those books as a kid.
The pictures disturbed me, like what were those things? My
mother hated him, which is why I never saw the
books until I was at a friend's house. She refused
to buy them. When I asked her later. She said
the poetry was juvenile, uh, and unimaginative. She was an
English major. Well that too. For example, Dr SEUs would
(37:21):
just add the same word multiple times just to meet
the cadence. This is what fifth graders do when they
can't keep up with more word, When they can't come
up with more words, she said. I know, because I
take poetry to fifth graders. She said, for example, from
red fish bluefish. Uh, some come a long long way.
Some are very very bad. All he does is yell, yell, yell.
(37:42):
He likes to drink and drink and drink. It's pretty
juvenile when you think about it. Oh, is that an
actual one? Red fish bluefish? Yeah, yeah, she's She's citing
that as an example. She said. Then there's the lazy
poetry method. Uh. If you can't find a word to rhyme,
just make one up. Uh. Cans rhymes with zan's bump. Well,
(38:07):
of course you have to make up a wump black?
What about black? No, she's saying black. I know that.
I don't know. I'm feeling defensive right now for some
weird I'm a book editor now, guys. I hate this
stuff more now than when I was a kid and
felt and just felt disturbed by the strange drawings. I
just thought i'd weigh in, because not everyone likes Dr Seuss.
(38:28):
He happened to be in the right place at the
right time. Book publishing is a fickle and strange business.
Many fantastic writers never see the light of day, and
some truly author awful authors make it big. Uh that
awful she she's bagging on fifty shades of gray. I
won't say what she said. Thanks for listening, guys, and
(38:48):
thanks for the stuff. I'll always keep coming back. That
is from Sophia Cook. I read a book a nook
and all that cowboy good. Thanks a lot, Sophia, So
her doctor seused to her is like the way I
was raised with Chevy Chase So who just made another
appearance in this episode. Well, if you want to get
(39:10):
in touch with us to let us know about someone
you were raised to dislike strongly by your parents. If
you don't use the H word here, you can visit
Stuff you Should Know dot com. Check out our social
links on that site. You can check me out at
the Josh Clarkway dot com. And you can send Chuck,
Jerry and Me an email to Stuff podcast at how
stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands
(39:35):
of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com.
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