Its appalling to realize that so many of the people who have posted on here have absolutely no concept of what the safety device that you hate so much is actually supposed to do.
First off, the purpose of an airbag is to prevent you from hitting a hard surface.
Most typically, if you are in the drivers seat, this would be the steering wheel.
If you are in the passenger’s seat, this would be the dashboard, or the windshield.
Air bags work best in perfectly head on accidents, and if you are wearing your seatbelt.
Air bags still have to work if it is an offset accident, or if you are not wearing your seatbelt.
Their effectiveness is greatly reduced, however.
Think about it this way.
You are not wearing your seat belt.
Driving down the highway at 75mph.
A car traveling the opposite direction veers directly in front of you, and hits you head on at 75mph, also.
Without an airbag, and with no seatbelt, no matter what car you are in, you are most likely very dead.
Your chest hits the steering wheel, your head hits the windshield, the car crushes around your legs, and you die very quickly.
With an airbag and a seatbelt, you keep from hitting the steering wheel and the windshield, your legs are kept out of the crumple zone directly in front of your feet, and you have a raging headache and backache for a couple of days.
Now, for ABS.
For whatever reason, people think ABS makes your car stop faster.
No, that’s not it’s purpose.
The purpose of ABS if to prevent the tires from locking up, so that you can steer AROUND whatever object it is that caused you to slam on the brakes in the first place. Once your tires are locked up, you can not steer around an object in the road.
If you are in a curve, if you slam on the brakes, your car stops going around the corner, and heads in a straight line. If you are going around a right hand curve, that means you are skidding into oncoming traffic.
With ABS, when you slam on the brakes in that same corner, you will continue going around the curve, and not just slide into oncoming traffic.
Personally, if I am the one traveling in the opposite direction, I would MUCH rather you have ABS in your car, so I don’t have to test out the air bag and seat belt in my car.
I am that person who will always vote for more safety feature in cars, so I can be protected from the stupidity of others, which I have 0 control over.
BC.