I heard a description of a scene in ‘Reacher’ in which the hero stomped on the bumper of a car hard enough to make the airbag deploy (then beat up the driver because he was a bad guy.) How hard would one have to stomp? Super-hero hard? Pro athlete hard? Ordinaryman hard?
Season2 Episode2 if you have prime video and want to see it, Reacher stops on the grille just above the Ford logo (Black Ford Taurus Interceptor) just a quick shot of the stomp before the airbag deploys, The driver of the Ford reports to the villain of the season who’s revealed a little bit at a time each episode.
Let’s be honest, not even Reacher can stomp a bumper that hard… But in reality…
For many cars, it depends whether the occupants are belted in or not. If you are foolish enough to be unbelted, a front airbag will typically deploy when the crash is the equivalent of an impact into a rigid wall at 10-12 mph. For belted occupants, most airbags will deploy at a higher threshold — about 16 mph — because the belts alone are likely to provide adequate protection up to these moderate speeds.
(This would be equivalent to striking a parked car of similar size at about 16 to 28 mph or higher.)
Remember, this is a very variable situation, each make and model of vehicle is different and how they absorb or respond to an impact is different. Also each and every possible vehicle you hit is different, and to make it even more speculative, it is also dependent on the way the impact occurs (head-on, side-impact, broad-side, etc…).
So, really when it all comes down to it, you do not want to know at what it takes to fire off that airbag…
Especially if you drive with your hand at 12 o’clock on the steering wheel, or you are drinking hot coffee.
“The hand at 12 o’clock on the steering wheel” occurred years ago to a neighbor; dislocated shoulder, wrist broken when it was driven into his face and numerous broken facial bones and an eye socket from his hand hitting his face… BTW, the accident was so minor, the car was still drivable. The son stuffed the airbag back enough into the wheel enough to drive it home and later to the repair shop.
1 Like
While author Lee Childs generally does a good job with details like that in Reacher books, this is a bit of “artistic license.” Not even Reacher can kick that hard.
This paper discusses the circumstances where airbags will deploy. The first case study on page 14 shows that when a Chevy Equinox and a Harley Davidson met head on and the airbags did not deploy. The change in velocity of the Equinox was enough but the deceleration was not, implying that the mass of the Harley wasn’t high enough to slow the Equinox quickly enough for deployment. I’m certain that Reacher’s foot momentum is nowhere near enough to exceed that of the Harley.
Scene is based pn the book but the airbag bit is the show using creative license,
1 Like
+1
Did you ever notice the way that airbag deployment is usually depicted in movies and TV shows? They almost always show something that is soft, which deploys slowly and noiselessly, and which then doesn’t deflate–to the annoyance of the passenger.
This stuff is mildly entertaining for those who don’t know any better–just like the locked, screeching brakes on late model cars in films and videos. Obviously, they deactivate the ABS.
3 Likes
Or the lurid tail slides in cars with electronic stability control! Especially the front wheel drive cars!
And EVERY car bursts into flames when wrecked or having bullets fired at it…
3 Likes
Yup!
INSTANTLY!
2 Likes
I watched The Hitman’s Bodyguard movie the other night and same thing, they hit something and the airbag deployed and so Samuel L. Jackson’s character used his 9 with a silencer to shoot both the front airbags so they would deflate… 
3 Likes
In the book later on there’s a realistic depiction of what happens when airbags deploy but they for whichever reason decided it would be more of a show for Reacher to do the stunt in reverse. More of a show that way I suppose.
I’ve been reading the book after watching up to episode 3. They’ll release #4 at midnight UK time Thurs which is 4pm Pacific Wed if the usual timing holds true.
Tail slides in FWD cars? I used to LOVE doing that! I’d go around a corner way too fast and make the tail break loose. Once I had a friend in the back seat of my Austin America and did that. He had a Firebird 400 with a 4.56 rear and 4-speed trans, and he was terrified. I wasn’t. I just kept my foot on the gas and eventually pulled out of it. After wagging the tail a few times. That Austin was snail slow but was a hoot to drive anyway.
2 Likes
Airbag goes off in human guinea pig crash test with two video cameras… The REAL story…
+1
I used to enjoy doing a bit of that with my '92 Accord!
He never hit the air bag…
I think it is how close you sit to the steering wheel, if short and the seat is way forward the air bag will hit you and will hurt, happened to my wife, you could see the makeup on the airbag from where it hit her in the face and chest… But the bag only comes out so far, so if you sit almost or all the way rearward then you would hit the air bag and the air bag not hit you… None of this is scientific and I have no prof either way, but I have seen a few wrecks… Seems like if the air bag hits you (you sit close to steering wheel), it can hurt you, but if you hit the air bag (you sit away from the steering wheel) you are less likely to be hurt by the bag… Don’t know if that makes any sense or not…
With or without the handbrake? If without, clearly that Austin was designed to be loose!
Like you noticed, he was sitting way back and he knew when and how he would hit the car and it was a glancing blow, and not one that slowed him down real fast… I know that the police have used the DNA from the face smear on the bag to find drivers who have abandoned their cars. Of course, the black eyes often give them away…
What not to do…
I used to do it with my Accord, without applying the handbrake, but I only did it on snowy surfaces, at fairly low speeds and when the roads were deserted.
I found out about tail skids in FWD cars the hard way with my first Saab… my first FWD. Taught me to put the new tires on the rear, not the front! Also taught me catching a skid in FWD is backwards from RWD. Gas it, don’t lift!
That video is funny… Reminds me when I was working at a Ford Lincoln dealer in the early 90’s we had a guy that was very scared of the airbags in vehicles, well he had to remove one for whatever reason and one of the head techs took his lunch bag, blew it up and twisted the end to hold the air, then he waited until the guy had just put the bag down on the passenger side floor and grabbed the steering wheel to remove it when the tech popped the lunch bag and it scared him so bad he bent the steering wheel on the newer car… everybody thought it was funny but the guy that bent the wheel and the service manager that had to order a new steering wheel for the customer and explain why it was going to take a few extra days for the job…
As far as the guy in the video, that is why You Tube is not the end all be all place for info about vehicle repair, cause any idiot can make and post a video on line. And what makes it even worse is the idiot still posted the video…
But like most of that crap on TikTok/YouTube etc, it is most likely staged for views anyway…
And if the seat belt does it’s job, he was not going to hit the air bag anyway, that is the point of the seat belt…
Like I said, when my wife decided she was going to play crash test dummy, her short self got hit by the air bag and left make up on the bag, I know she left DNA on it also… lol
1 Like