Expert: Douglas Gan - 3/19/2010

Question
In the movie "the blind side"  the driver gets into an accident. The air bag deploys.  The driver protects his young passenger from harm by extending his arm and deflecting the bag from direct  contact with the boy.  Based upon the speed and force of the bag, is it possible that what was shown could have happened?

Answer
Hi Marty:

Good question.  The answer is 'no'.  What most likely happened is that the driver saw the impending crash and instinctively extended his arm to protect the passenger (much like my Mother always did when she stopped too fast).  That being the case, the airbag would have deployed and hit his arm rather than the passenger...that could happen.
But for someone to reach between a deploying airbag at the time of the accident (while his own bag was deploying is impossible).  Airbags deploy at speeds of up to 200 mph and within 1/25th of a second.  That's far too fast to intervene.

I hope this helps you
For more info, please feel free to view our website (especially the resource and components pages)
www.airbagsolutions.com

Thanks
Doug