When should air bags deploy?

My son was in a wreck today and thankfully he's fine. A car in front of him caused an accident which caused him to hit another car. He was going around 60mph and hit a car while slamming his breaks so he had started deceleration. The airbags did not deploy. Should they have?

Better call Saul!

guy ran a red light and hit my wife on monday, hers did not go off either...he was going 40 mph

Googled this:

"Frontal air bags are generally designed to deploy in "moderate to severe" frontal or near-frontal crashes, which are defined as crashes that are equivalent to hitting a solid, fixed barrier at 8 to 14 mph or higher. (This would be equivalent to striking a parked car of similar size at about 16 to 28 mph or higher.)"

They just muffle the screams more than anything.

just before you need them

at all depends the angle and speed of an impact and the srs system you have on the vehicle

I get asked this daily. Has to impact the sensor to trigger them to deploy.

From what I understand, having a small explosion inflating a pillow is not the most preferable type of thing to have happen when otherwise things would be okay. As in, if they didn't inflate and the seatbelt worked, then yay, no broken nose. Especially if it's a Takata airbag, in which case, yay, no severed jugular.

My daugter cashed at 25 mph and all airbags including the curtain airbags deployed.

no, the sensor does not have to take a direct impact, it's all about inertia.

ps, airbags do save lives period. granted, they can cut, burn, or even break a nose but it sure beats the other possible injury/death, and yes, i hear all the time if you go thru an airbag deployment, you wont want to go thru it again

Was driving somewhere in Little Elm (North Texas) and caught glimpse of a loose tire/rim combo rolling/bouncing in the oncoming lane. No idea where it came from. An F150 service vehicle for some company hit it head on launching it in the other direction onto their shoulder, thankfully. I watched both airbags deploy in that truck and I had slowed enough to catch them pulling over to the side and getting out of the truck. First, I was amazed that they were able to do that as the whole cab looked like it filled with baby powder and when one stepped out of the drivers side a huge cloud of smoke vented from the door. I bet it scared the [censored] out of them.

Point being is if it could go off for hitting a tire, I surely would think and want it to go off hitting something larger. I'm not savvy on air bags but something doesn't seem right to me on that one.

Saw Youtube video recently that addresses that very problem.

Picture an impatient young man sitting at a stop sign in his fancy expensive convertible waiting for an old lady with a large purse and cane struggling ever so slowly to cross in front of him. The impatient young man lays on the horn trying to hurry her along. The slow old lady gets exasperated at the horn honking and takes a hefty swing at the car with her purse. And the airbag deploys.