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Situational distinctions... Posted by Snowmobile [Email]  (#686)  [Profile/Gallery]
(more from Snowmobile) on Sun, 5 Jun 2016 06:03:15
In Reply to: Re: Airbags, JerseySaab  [Profile/Gallery]
, Sat, 4 Jun 2016 06:14:10
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I partly agree, but would caution that many modern cars now *rely* on airbags for safety.
We have a 1989 900 (no airbags), a 1993 900 (airbags), and a 2004 9-5 (non-Takata airbags to the best of my knowledge).
The older 900's were designed with compliant materials on all protruding cabin surfaces, such that in a collision, if your head hit the steering wheel or some other part of the cabin, it would soften the blow somewhat. The cars were designed to be safe from a structural standpoint, though advances have been made since then even in terms of body structure. The compressible interior materials (including the headrest, designed specifically to reduce whiplash) are the final touches.
The 9-5 also was designed very well from a passive perspective - the body structure is excellent, and it is the first car to properly address the SUV side impact condition, and did so structurally using a folding B-pillar. Active head restraints (active only in the sense that they move as a pendulum) were another highlight... Many advances over the c900 and a safer car overall.
That said, some safety details got dropped/forgotten with the 9-5 (even dash light colours). Most notably, many of the interior surfaces are harder ("cheaper, plastic" etc)... this may be a result of increased GM influence, as all of their cars are even more so like that. No big deal with airbags, front, side etc. But if they don't deploy (or you disable them), the interior may be less safe to bash your head into than a 9000 or c900.
Actually, the reason the 9-3ss was the first car ever to get a double best pick from IIHS rather than the 9-5 is that the 9-3 had side curtain airbags, and the 9-5 did not, so the rear occupant's head touched the side of the car at the c pillar.
Looking at other cars... most modern sedans, especially domestic and asian, would not pass the safety testing without airbags. When the side curtains came in and were optional in many cases, cars would get 5 stars with and poor without. So the car is poor if the airbags are disabled, or in a second hit, etc... hence the resistance by dealers to disable.
One other thing, all the compressible materials are probably good for reducing the risk of skull fractures (who wants those?)... that said, they probably do next to nothing to reduce concussion, whereas an airbag might. So probably airbags are safer. It would be nice if they padded the interiors better as well, such that in the event a bag did not deploy, it would be better than having a hard plastic surface to bash your head on...
All in all, I feel pretty safe driving either of the c900's - they were excellent for their time, and represented the key major leaps in structural safety vs other cars of the time and even well into the 1990's. You can see that on the saabs save lives page on this site. The 9-5 is better though.
So cars may be improving overall in terms of safety, but the details are still valuable. I think that should be more the message, rather than eg a call to abandon airbags...
->Posting last edited on Sun, 5 Jun 2016 06:10:36.
, Fri, 3 Jun 2016 14:13:28
2, Sat, 4 Jun 2016 06:14:10, Sun, 5 Jun 2016 06:03:15 <-- Viewing This Message, Sat, 4 Jun 2016 12:57:22, Sat, 4 Jun 2016 18:21:19, Thu, 2 Jun 2016 12:24:29
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