Model 3 potentially totaled by car running from the police, airbags didn't deploy...

[SMAlset]

@gdwsk sorry to see your beautiful red car in that state. Glad you were okay. Hope the guy gets locked up and off the road for a long time. Nice wheels BTW.

 

[Nuclear Fusion]

@gdwsk Hope the guy gets locked up and off the road for a long time.

That seems to be working.....

 

[Daniel in SD]

I don't know the specifics of the safety systems in the Model 3 but airbags are triggered by acceleration sensors. The nature of this crash didn't generate enough acceleration to set off the front or side airbags. It was a glancing blow that caused crumpling of the external portion of the car. There does not appear to be any significant passenger compartment intrusion. There wasn't enough perpendicular force on the left side of the car to setoff the lateral sensors and not enough force forward/backwards to trigger those sensors either.

Furthermore, front airbags are primarily designed to protect people who are not wearing safety belts. Having them go off in crashes that don't involved enough front/back impact could cause harm or death in occupants. Side airbags are helpful whether restrained or not but are also primarily focused on unrestrained occupants.

I'm not sure that's the case with modern cars. Watch any crash test video and you can see the airbag prevents you from hitting the steering wheel. I believe they put more give in the seatbelts than they used to so that you decelerate more gently. I believe cars also have two stage front airbags that deploy more violently for unbelted passengers.
To me that crash doesn't look bad enough to deploy the airbags either.

 

[Cycle11111]

I got hit in the same front quarter in my old Toyota Prius a few years ago. The other driver was a DUI and was traveling in the on-coming lane and hit us in the same spot but a glancing blow - very similar looking damage. No airbags deployed (no injuries) and we sent the data recorder files to Toyota and they confirmed the force was not great enough in a direction to cause injury so no airbags. Unfortunately my car was also totaled.

 

[dek526]

glad to hear you are ok. hoping tesla puts you at the front of the line for a replacement

 

[Uncle Paul]

Think I saw the guy running from the police on TV. Started in Manhattan Beach and went towards LA.

Guy in stolen car was driving like a crazy person. Sideswiped several other cars. Was traveling at high speeds and running Red lights.

Police fell back and terminated the close persuit for safety. Almost hit several pedestrians.

Not sure how it ended, but I was amazed that he did not crash out.

Glad you are OK.

Due to the way you were hit, the airbags probably were not triggered. No fault here. Glad you had your seat belt on. The Tesla safety systems worked well and there was no intrusion into the passenger cell.

 

[Darscot]

Airbags in this situation would have caused further injury. No need to have your forearms and maybe face burnt in a minor accident. Minor is of course relative, its not a fender bender.

 

[clostridium]

I'm not sure that's the case with modern cars. Watch any crash test video and you can see the airbag prevents you from hitting the steering wheel. I believe they put more give in the seatbelts than they used to so that you decelerate more gently. I believe cars also have two stage front airbags that deploy more violently for unbelted passengers.
To me that crash doesn't look bad enough to deploy the airbags either.

Modern airbags will not deploy in every crash where someone could hit the steering wheel. They do have the ability to adjust the force of inflation based on multiple factors based on input from the sensors and on sensing of the size of the passenger but that's not relevant to this specific discussion. When the force and acceleration is mostly coming from the rear the front airbags will rarely deploy. The reason is that the prevailing initial force is actually to force the passenger backwards, not forwards. There are rebound forces where the person then goes forward but this is not as powerful and the timing is not as predictable since it depends on many factors around the nature of the crash.

Those crash videos you are watching are frontal impact videos. In that scenario, which is exactly what frontal airbags are primarily designed to protect people from, you will see the airbags act to attenuate the impact with the steering wheel.

This is a well done brief description of modern airbags:
The Physics Of: Airbags - Feature - Car and Driver

 

[timk225]

If someone ever hits me with no insurance, they better hope the police get to him before I do.

Sue him!!! SUE SUE SUE. Sue him, his family, his house, his dog, etc. Take all you can get, I would!

 

[Daniel in SD]

If someone ever hits me with no insurance, they better hope the police get to him before I do.

Sue him!!! SUE SUE SUE. Sue him, his family, his house, his dog, etc. Take all you can get, I would!

Something tells me a guy without insurance running from police in a high speed chase probably doesn't have a whole lot of assets. Haha.

 

[JeffK]

I got hit in the same front quarter in my old Toyota Prius a few years ago. The other driver was a DUI and was traveling in the on-coming lane and hit us in the same spot but a glancing blow - very similar looking damage. No airbags deployed (no injuries) and we sent the data recorder files to Toyota and they confirmed the force was not great enough in a direction to cause injury so no airbags. Unfortunately my car was also totaled.

Wow, my Prius was totaled from an impact in the same spot and my airbags did not go off as well. Mine wasn't a glancing blow but more highway speeds -> emergency braking -> then crunch into the back corner of a Mercedes that was cutting into my lane.

 

[Economite]

If someone ever hits me with no insurance, they better hope the police get to him before I do.

Sue him!!! SUE SUE SUE. Sue him, his family, his house, his dog, etc. Take all you can get, I would!

Dude... Chill... You (presumably) have uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage to protect you (as well as medical insurance). No reason to resort to violence. And a lawsuit against someone who is uninsured, in jail, and (likely) has few/no assets is just a waste of time.

The OP's car was wrecked and he had a very scary experience. But it doesn't sound like he was injured.

 

[gdwsk]

It's probably because you were hit where sensor(s) weren't able to detect a significant risk of injury to deploy air bags. But it would be good to reach out to higher management contacts in Tesla, last resort Elon Musk to get a better understanding why the air bags didn't deploy. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's similar to my guess.

I figured that's the case, but not sure who to reach out to at Tesla, as all my initial emails didn't warrant a response.

It may be advantageous that they didn't deploy. You didn't indicate any serious injury, which is an indication that they didn't need to deploy. If they had deployed, it would have been possible that you may have received worse injuries. Airbags deploy like a ton of bricks and can cause serious injuries, but still save you from life-threatening injuries.

You were in a highly atypical accident. The impact was in the forward direction and located at the front left corner.From a motion point of view, the impact straightened out the direction of travel. The SRS system would not be tuned for this situation.
From the article @C141medic posted Air bags are not designed to help when you are rear-ended since the impact force pushes you into the seat. In those cases, their only benefit would be during the rebound event. (Or if you then collide with a vehicle in front, in which case you would not want them to deploy prematurely)

Yea, I was thinking the side curtain airbags could have been more beneficial than the steering wheel airbag, as the impact was more from the side than behind or head-on. I feel like the impact could have potentially bounced a driver into the window depending how they were sitting.

Did your seatbelt tighten up? When my airbags in my S deployed, my seatbelt sucked me against my seat too which would help prevent head hitting I would think.

I know the seatbelts tightened because I was still stuck up against the seat after the accident and had to unbuckle to move.

I would be concerned if your belt didnt perform the same.

It all happened so fast, so I don't remember them tightening up. I feel like I probably wouldn't have hit my head on the steering wheel if they'd tightened.

Glad you didn't get any serious injury. As stated above it maybe the impact angle didn't warrant air bag deployment. Did your glove box open, or otherwise did the car detect the accident?

Glove box did open, so that's good at least.

If someone ever hits me with no insurance, they better hope the police get to him before I do.

Sue him!!! SUE SUE SUE. Sue him, his family, his house, his dog, etc. Take all you can get, I would!

The guy didn't have insurance and was driving a beater 2002 Mercury Sable... not sure he has anything worth taking that hasn't already been taken.

 

[gdwsk]

Think I saw the guy running from the police on TV. Started in Manhattan Beach and went towards LA.

Guy in stolen car was driving like a crazy person. Sideswiped several other cars. Was traveling at high speeds and running Red lights.

Police fell back and terminated the close persuit for safety. Almost hit several pedestrians.

Not sure how it ended, but I was amazed that he did not crash out.

Glad you are OK.

Due to the way you were hit, the airbags probably were not triggered. No fault here. Glad you had your seat belt on. The Tesla safety systems worked well and there was no intrusion into the passenger cell.

Entirely possible that was him. Although, according to the police report, it wasn't a stolen car. The original LAPD officer that was chasing him did show up at the scene shortly after.

Bright side, you could order the AWD or P version now.

Originally wanted the white interior, but didn't want to wait once config opened for me. Will definitely consider AWD now, depending on insurance payout and whatnot.

glad to hear you are ok. hoping tesla puts you at the front of the line for a replacement

When I called my service center, they said I'll have to put in a new reservation and wait. Luckily I have a second reservation that I can use (was supposed to be for my parents, but they said I can use it).

 

[gdwsk]

Also of interest, everything in the Tesla app except GPS continued to work until my car ran out of battery. I wonder if the GPS chip is located in the fender where I got hit?

 

[ℬête Noire]

Looking at that damage and knowing that you were hit from behind, the force vector created by the impact would have mostly pulled you back towards the seat. Any no airbag there to cushion you. It's good news, really. If the fleeing vehicle hand tried to pass you split second further into your left turn there would have been a lot more of their energy into the door putting your sideways and far more likely the side airbags would have fired to protect your from that lateral motion.

P.S. If I was looking for "that's BS" I may be inclined to dig a little deeper into the police claim that they had stopped the pursuit. They may indeed have but "we stopped pursuing" is also a standard CYA line.

 

[ceekz]

Hope you have priority status for ordering a replacement, as a current owner...

 

[Az_Rael]

It all happened so fast, so I don't remember them tightening up. I feel like I probably wouldn't have hit my head on the steering wheel if they'd tightened

Well, I was still pinned in my seat by my locked belt after my accident, so I would think you would have noticed if the belt tensioning system had gone off. I would definitely ask Tesla about that.

BTW, if you don't get any answers from Tesla and you still have concerns about the safety systems of the car, you can always file a report with the NHTSA.

 

[roblab]

I got hit in the same front quarter in my old Toyota Prius a few years ago. The other driver was a DUI and was traveling in the on-coming lane and hit us in the same spot but a glancing blow - very similar looking damage. No airbags deployed (no injuries) and we sent the data recorder files to Toyota and they confirmed the force was not great enough in a direction to cause injury so no airbags. Unfortunately my car was also totaled.

Over and over! Some guy nearly kills me, blah, blah, car totaled, blah, blah, DUI ... (crickets). This whole world is so stuck on the right to get bombed/inebriated/brainless that no one will make a peep about the fact that people drive around drunk every day. Drinking (alcohol) is OK! Drinking at home and beating the wife/kids is OK! Drinking enough for a buzz is OK! Oh, and driving drunk just a teeny bit... is OK if you're not caught. Interesting that truckers are not allowed to drive AS drunk as car drivers!

Where I live it is considered fact that on Saturday PM one in three cars coming at you is being driven by someone legally drunk, but NO ONE cares because it would impact sales of alcoholic beverage. Must be part of the crowd. Fill 'er up again! Wonder if the air bags will work.

You were lucky you didn't die.

 

[dek526]

When I called my service center, they said I'll have to put in a new reservation and wait. Luckily I have a second reservation that I can use (was supposed to be for my parents, but they said I can use it).

thought I remember seeing a post that Tesla moved a current owner to the top of the list as their model 3 was also totaled. I'd call support before asking the svc advisor