“Is driving a car with a disabled air bag that much more unsafe?”
That depends on how lucky you are, on any given day.
Although I have driven for the past 46 years without having been involved in an accident of any type, today, I very narrowly missed being hit head-on by a woman who was in the wrong lane of an expressway exit.
Only by extreme evasive maneuvering and panic braking was I able to avoid being hit by this demented person. However, if luck had not been with me today, and if I had been foolish enough to drive with inoperative safety systems, I might not be here right now to recount my hair-raising adventure this afternoon.
In other words, having an inoperative air bag is not a problem…until it becomes a problem.
Are you able to accurately predict when a…problem…might occur?
As Dirty Harry said, “Do you feel lucky today? Well…do you?”.
Meh, a car with an inoperative air bag-is roughly as safe as a car manufactured without airbags, and way safer than a motorcycle or bicycle, that has no safety systems whatever. If I’m willing to ride a motorcycle (and I am), I’d be pretty odd to take exception to riding in a 4-wheeled vehicle with crumple zones and a seat belt.
but if it is a problem with the explosive cylinder not airbag deployment you have done nothing to reduce the risk
Um, why wouldn't it? AFAIK, the airbags aren't spontaneously igniting--they're igniting too forcefully whene they're triggered. Unplug them, and you've made it impossible for them to function...and to mal-function.
(And that’s how we did it in the airlines, with Minimum Equipment Lists. If a system “got MEL’d,” the first thing you’d do, generally, is pull the circuit breaker that sends power to the system. That way, you can fly around with an inoperative thrust reverser (for instance), for a few days, without having to worry that it would inadvertently be commanded to function, and function poorly.
@meanjoe75fan I looked into it as well as possible, and it does appear as you say the danger is in a deployment phase. Sure my 71 nova was totaled by an illegal immigrant with no license driving his sisters car with no insurance who thought the green light meant he could turn left, and as he told the officer “No the light was not yellow, it was green, I turn left and he hit me.” Sure I bruised my knee on the light switch and cracked the windsheild with my head, small scrape on my forehead and a sore knee and thumb, the column shfiter was pointed to the floor, no seat belt of course, no airbags of course, was a 45mph zone, not sure what the impact speed was but 45 before probably 15’ of skid marks. Hear ya about the safety police, but you have a loaner and there is no need to drive the car.
Yes I did meet a wrong way driver on exit ramp. At 5pm on Friday. Early bar specials? Thought for a sec might be good opportunity to meet personal injury lawyer but went around car.
A month ago, heading to the store on the four lane, a guy had been pulled over going the wrong way. The police had to have been right there and he couldn’t have gone more than half a mile. In 40 years its only the second one I’ve seen and usually ends up as confusion at the stop lights or intersection or poor lighting or something. It can happen even with an alert driver in an unfamiliar road.