Safety - kids and front airbags

[Tuna55]

Disclaimer: I know the safest place is in the back, I would only have my kids in the back unless in a very unusual circumstance, blah blah blah

OK, only a technical response. Lets say I took my 45 lb kid and put him in his booster in the front seat. How to the airbag sensors deal with that? Would they not fire because they don't see an adult weight? Is there an airbag disable switch somewhere for just the passenger side?

Thanks
-Brian

 

[Bicster]

SC car seat laws:

http://www.dmv.org/sc-south-carolina/safety-laws.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

To answer your question, there is no switch to manually disable the airbag. It's based on the weight of the occupant. If your 45-lb child plus booster doesn't illuminate the "passenger airbag off" indicator (and the indicator doesn't _stay_ lit), the child cannot ride in the front.

 

[Tuna55]

I have four kids, so the unusual situation would be if the other three were in the back, so we're covered legally.

Anyway, I want to understand. There is a light which illuminates when the seat belt clicks and the weight is not present? So, if I put him in the car with seat, click the seatbelt, the light will show if he + the seat doesn't weigh enough. Cool.

 

[Klayfish]

Tuna,
I can't speak for my LEAF specifically as I thankfully have yet to test its' airbag system. However, I'm assuming that it's very much like almost any other car. Yes, the sensors in the seat will determine how much weight is in the front seat and then determine if the airbag should be fired. I've never had either of my twins (60lbs each) in the front, just my 86lb 9 year old. The airbag light did not come on, so I'm guessing he's heavy enough at this point.

Honestly, from the countless crashes I've seen, I don't think that a kid in a forward facing booster seat is at any major risk from the front airbag (this is assuming the seat is not all the way in its' most forward position). I actually went to a 4 day seminar recently about modern technology in cars. Part of the discussion was showing us the inner workings of seat sensors and how they figure out who/what is in the seat. There are many different manufacturers of the sensors, but it's amazing what they can do.

 

[morlglums]

On a related note, what is the weight limit to activate the passenger side air-bag? My wife is about 105 lbs and sometimes the air-bag light comes on (indicating the air-bag is deactivated.) We have had to stop the car, turn it off, and shuffle her around until it registers correctly. Is my airbag sensor malfunctioning?

-Morgan

 

[Klayfish]

On a related note, what is the weight limit to activate the passenger side air-bag? My wife is about 105 lbs and sometimes the air-bag light comes on (indicating the air-bag is deactivated.) We have had to stop the car, turn it off, and shuffle her around until it registers correctly. Is my airbag sensor malfunctioning?

-Morgan

It doesn't go just by weight. The computer does its' best to figure out what is in the front seat and make decisions accordingly. It tries to figure out if it's human or otherwise. It does this through a combination of sensors that measure a lot of things, but primary is weight and position/distribution. So it measures if the 105lbs is distributed on the seat as it would expect a human to be, or if its' more like a 105lb bag of lead. Hence why if your wife shifts around, it may change the computers mind about what is in the seat. You typically shouldn't need to shut the car off for this, just moving around should make the computer read differently. 105lbs is clearly on the very low end of the sliding scale of average adult human weight, so probably why it's a bit confused at times.