All about airbags and safety: Bike airbag vests, multi-collision airbags in cars and more!

Unfortunately, sometimes it is impossible to prevent a crash, and you are bound to fall even after paying full attention during riding. All we can do to be on the safer side is to be kitted with the best riding gear possible. The more you invest in a good quality riding gear the less likely you need to spend money on the hospital bills that follow after a crash. With the recent innovation in riding gears, airbag vests or jackets are becoming fairly common now. It is primarily a racing technology which was later on implemented on everyday riding gears.

How does an airbag vest or jacket works?

The basic concept of an airbag is the same as the ones seen in cars, the only difference is that it is inflated under a jacket of a vest. Such jacket is fitted with a high-speed airbag deployment system which is triggered as soon as rider fells off from the motorbike. The trigger reaction is controlled by a coiled wire lanyard which is attached to a point on the bike and connected to the chest section of the jacket via a quick release connection system. When a rider meets an accident and flies off from the bike the coiled wire pulls a “key” out of a gas release system which inflates the air cushion inside jacket, even before the rider hits the ground. Such jackets provide proper back, neck and chest protection, reducing overall injury risks.

When talking about cars, the Korean automaker, Hyundai, has recently revealed a new multi-collision airbag technology that promises to make the cars safer in the time to come. The new technology improves the airbags performance in an accident involving multiple collisions.

What is a multi-collision accident?

Such accidents are those which involves multiple collisions, for example a primary impact is followed by a secondary impact such as with a tree, road dividers, electrical posts or other cars. Such collision cases appear in every third accident on the roads today. As per the statistical data by the US-based National Automotive Sampling System Crashworthiness Data System (NASS-CDS), close to 30% vehicles in all 56,000 accidents in the North American region (2000-2012) were involved in multi-collision accidents.

Since the current airbags technology doesn’t provide any secondary collision safety after the initial impact, they are prove to be useless in a multi-collision crash case. Since positions of the car occupants are compromised after the first impact current airbags provide insufficient safety since occupants are forced to unusual position soon after the crash.  The new safety tech developed Hyundai works by detecting occupants’ position in the car cabin after the first impact. These airbags are deployed more instantly during the second impact by recalibrating the required collision intensity for deployment. “By improving airbag performance in multi-collision scenarios, we expect to significantly improve the safety of our drivers and passengers,” said Taesoo Chi, head of Chassis Technology Center at Hyundai Motor Group. “We will continue our research on more diverse crash situations as part of our commitment to producing even safer vehicles that protect occupants and prevent injuries.” Stay tuned for more such informative articles!