Why Didn’t My Air Bag Deploy in an Accident?

If you have been in an auto accident, the last thing you will be thinking at the time is why your airbag isn’t full on in your face. However, after things calm down, it might begin to beg for your attention. After all, if your crash had been worse, you wouldn’t have had the protection that an airbag is supposed to provide. This might make you wonder why it didn’t deploy? Is it a defect? Could you have been in danger?

5 Reasons Why Your Air Bag Didn’t Deploy

When an air bag fails to deploy in a crash, there are five major reasons for it. One of them is pretty innocent and the other four are a little more dangerous. If you are wondering why your air bag didn’t deploy, consider these causes.

• Type and Severity of the Collision – Whether or not the air bags deploy can often depend on the crash itself. If you didn’t collide hard enough to trigger the sensors, the air bags won’t deploy. Furthermore, you may have been hit in an area where the sensors won’t trigger. In rear and side collisions, the frontal air bags have less of a chance of triggering.
• Defective Sensors – If you were in a crash where the air bags should have deployed and indeed would have helped lessen injury, then you may be looking at defective sensors. Improper testing, design, installation, and even software calibration can result in the sensors not firing when they should.
• Defective Electrical – Sometimes a sensor and other parts work as they should, but the electrical in your car does not give them the juice they need to do their job properly. If electrical signals are not communicated properly, the air bags won’t work properly. Usually, this is the case where one air bag deploys, but another does not.
• Severed Wires – In particularly bad crashes, the wires that allow the sensors to detect and the air bags to deploy can become severed. If your crash was particularly sudden, then this can happen, although most manufacturers make it difficult to happen.
• Defective Air Bag Modules – There have been incidents where the vehicles sent all the right signals, but the air bag module itself prevented itself from deploying.

What to Do When an Air Bag Didn’t Deploy

If it can be determined that your air bag didn’t deploy for a reason outside of a defect, then there isn’t much you can do. However, if there was a defect with the module, the sensors, or even the wiring in your car that caused the bag not to deploy, you may be able to pursue compensation. This is particularly true if the air bag that failed to deploy can be shown to have lead to increased injury from the crash.

On top of a personal injury suit for the crash, you may also be able to pursue a separate suit against the manufacturer. This means you can recover extra compensation from the manufacturer for defects. However, this will be void if they have already sent out recalls that you ignored, such as with the Takata air bag recalls.

Need Help?

Have you been in an accident where your air bag didn’t deploy and you believe it lead to further injury? If your vehicle can be investigated and it can be determined that a defect caused the air bags not to deploy, we may be able to help you recover compensation for injuries that never should have happened. If you have been in an accident in the Los Angeles area, contact us today to see what we at the Law Office of Freeman and Freeman can do for you.