[svxistentialist]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pockets

I was driving my wife's Outback on Saturday when a 17-year-old kid blew right through a stop sign and t-boned us at maybe 30mph. Everybody's okay, but the car is in pretty rough shape. We spun 180 degrees and nearly rolled. The left wheels have scratches all the way around from digging into the road. I drove it home, but there is (I believe) structural damage in front of the right rear wheel.

The right curtain airbag went off, and of course the airbag light on the dash is on. I drove the car, and it's fine aside from the bad visibility out of the right side, but I'm curious whether the rest of the airbags are now compromised. If I was driving it to a shop for an estimate and involved in a big frontal impact, would the fronts deploy, for instance?

I'm also interested to know why the front right seat bag didn't deploy. How does the car determine which side airbags to fire? Can it detect the severity of the impact, or does it detect the location of the impact front to rear?

Please don't guess; I'm looking for actual information.

Again, everybody's okay. My wife was in the left rear seat, but was hit in the head by a 55-gallon aquarium that we had just bought two blocks away. The aquarium did not break, but if we had rolled things might have been different. The airbag definitely kept my father-in-law from hitting his head on the side window.

Jeepers Nick, I'm glad you are all OK. A little more impact and that would have been nasty.

Somebody up there is watching over you.

Joe