Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot Com. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's
Speaker 1: Jerry and this is Airbags Airbags. Addition, I'm surprised we
Speaker 1: haven't done this one yet. It seems so stuff you
Speaker 1: should Know and it's just been sitting out there ready
Speaker 1: to explode in your face. Yes, hopefully in the best
Speaker 1: way possible. Uh. And I also had a bit of
Speaker 1: a hard time because this article we should mention is
Speaker 1: from Marshall Brain, who is the original inventor of the
Speaker 1: house Stuff Works website ninety years ago in his k Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he used to write everything and then boy it's
Speaker 1: been through so many changes since then. But this article
Speaker 1: that was uh, Like he keeps talking about like looking
Speaker 1: forward to and what's in or for its, So it's
Speaker 1: kind of hard to find out what was still legit
Speaker 1: and what wasn't. But I got the nuts and bolts
Speaker 1: of it. I think what's weird is it seems like
Speaker 1: a lot of the regulation is exactly the same. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is I mean, I like I ran in the
Speaker 1: same thing too, Like I I go look up stuff,
Speaker 1: and I'd be like, well, wait, they're saying the same thing,
Speaker 1: but this says two thousands sixteen or two thousand eighteen
Speaker 1: or something. I don't think regulations have changed all that much.
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I got tripped up a little
Speaker 1: bit with the UM factory installed off switch for passenger side,
Speaker 1: and I finally figured all that out. I think, save it.
Speaker 1: It's gold so exciting. Just wait, what's weird? Is this
Speaker 1: is the stuff you should know? Topic? Um? I just
Speaker 1: realized how boring stuff you should know can be. Chuck.
Speaker 1: Let's start with history, shall we. Yeah. So, apparently when
Speaker 1: I think of air bags, I think of like the nineties,
Speaker 1: that's airbag erra to me. Um, no, that there have
Speaker 1: been airbags and cars in the United States going back
Speaker 1: to the seventies as far as like mass produced, commercially
Speaker 1: available air bags, especially driver's side, And then I think
Speaker 1: even a little later in the seventies, um passenger side
Speaker 1: airbags came around. I had no idea. You know, well,
Speaker 1: you hate Chevy Chase, right. Have you ever seen Vacation
Speaker 1: the first one? There's an airbag in there that Yeah,
Speaker 1: he jumps over the gulch and crashes his car, and
Speaker 1: as he's opening his door, the air quote unquote airbag
Speaker 1: goes off, which is clearly like a trash bag, and
Speaker 1: it's clearly coming from outside the car on the ground
Speaker 1: because he opens the door and it comes up really quick.
Speaker 1: Like they couldn't figure out a way even in a
Speaker 1: three to make it look like it came out of
Speaker 1: the steering right. The director was like, is that what
Speaker 1: an airbag looks like? In the special effects guys like
Speaker 1: do you know what an airbag looks like? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: do you have any more blow? Um? I don't know
Speaker 1: if that was Chevy Chase base or just making movie
Speaker 1: in the eighties, making movies in the eighties. The cocaine reference.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was everything in the eighties. Um. But
Speaker 1: apparently when was it nineteen fifty three that an engineering
Speaker 1: tech from Pennsylvania named John Hetrick put a patent on
Speaker 1: a design for what he called a safety cushion assembly
Speaker 1: for automohive automotive vehicles. He said, automohive. Maybe that's where
Speaker 1: he went wrong because he took it to Ford and
Speaker 1: GM and Chrysler, and of course they were all like me.
Speaker 1: If you listen to our Pinto episode They're like, uh,
Speaker 1: we got cars that are killing, burning people alive. You
Speaker 1: think we care about your air bags? They there, he
Speaker 1: just got crickets back. Yeah, you got nothing. And it
Speaker 1: stayed that way until another guy from the Pinto episode,
Speaker 1: Ralph nader Um, wrote in his book Unsafe at Any
Speaker 1: Speed that air bags, along with seat belts and conjunction
Speaker 1: of seat belts, would save lives big time. And he
Speaker 1: was right, actually even still to this day. Um the
Speaker 1: sweet spot for surviving a terrible crash is seat belt
Speaker 1: in an air bag, both working perfectly to save your life.
Speaker 1: But the idea behind um air bags was well, seat belts,
Speaker 1: I think became uh um part of federal regulations in
Speaker 1: the United States and five sixty seven as an installed
Speaker 1: but like no one war him right, there was no
Speaker 1: law that said you had to wear them for many,
Speaker 1: many years, and so only about a quarter of Americans
Speaker 1: wore them. So people were still dying in carrex even
Speaker 1: though their cars had seat belts, because they weren't wearing
Speaker 1: them because they were idiots. So people said, well, maybe
Speaker 1: we'll put in these airbags. These are passive safety features.
Speaker 1: A seat belt is technically an active safety feature because
Speaker 1: unless you have one of those where like you'd open
Speaker 1: the door in the yeah, and then you close it
Speaker 1: and go over. You forgot about those. Even still you
Speaker 1: had to do the lap belt part yourself. So that's
Speaker 1: technically act. You have to do something to put it on.
Speaker 1: Air bag is different where you are just sitting there
Speaker 1: and it does it whether you want it to or not.
Speaker 1: It's a passive safety feature. So they said, well, maybe
Speaker 1: if we put air bags in, it will save lives,
Speaker 1: and so they started putting air bags in. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then I'm sure even back then there were people that
Speaker 1: like government regulating, socialists trying to save me. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't even turn off this air bag. It's a good
Speaker 1: whale and Jennings, I wish I could do a good
Speaker 1: whale and Jennings, I wouldn't be doing the show. Let's
Speaker 1: be out on the road really with my act. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that hurts. I'd bring you along, okay, you'd be little whale,
Speaker 1: I'd say, whale and Jennings, Um, so I think, uh,
Speaker 1: starting in what like, they started putting them out and
Speaker 1: finally in the seventies and the eighties. But when they
Speaker 1: sign is when they said finally all new cars gotta
Speaker 1: have these air bags. Yeah, for for the frontal airbags
Speaker 1: at least for the driver and the passenger side funnel
Speaker 1: air Yeah, it was still a little bit before the
Speaker 1: side impact bags were mandatory. And they said, okay, well,
Speaker 1: everybody saved. The world is saved because we have airbags now,
Speaker 1: so no one's ever going to die in a crash.
Speaker 1: And then people started saying, wait a minute, um, I
Speaker 1: I just read about this person who was an a
Speaker 1: fender bender and their air bag went off and it
Speaker 1: killed them. What about that? And so they started looking
Speaker 1: into airbags a little bit and they said, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: well maybe this is something what you call a work
Speaker 1: in progress. And still to this day, air bred air
Speaker 1: bag technology, this passive safety technology is a work in
Speaker 1: progress because part of airbag technology is also educating the
Speaker 1: public and how to use it correctly. Because an air
Speaker 1: bag is not a soft little pillow that you you're like, well,
Speaker 1: after this crash, I guess I let's take a nap here.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a it's basically like a punch to
Speaker 1: your face. YEA that inflates very quickly, um, and is
Speaker 1: meant to keep you from eating the steering column, which
Speaker 1: apparently you can do and a high enough speed crash
Speaker 1: your seatbelt. Even when you're wearing it correctly and you're
Speaker 1: sitting where you're supposed to be, you can still be
Speaker 1: forced into the steering column. The point of the air bag,
Speaker 1: especially for the driver, is that you, Um, it provides
Speaker 1: a barrier between you and the steering calm. It's not
Speaker 1: a comfortable barrier, but it's a barrier that will keep
Speaker 1: your chest from caving in. Yeah. And obviously people are
Speaker 1: more at risk if you're you know, let's say you're
Speaker 1: a little short stuff and you gotta hike that seat
Speaker 1: way forward in order to drive, you're that much closer
Speaker 1: physically to the steering column. Um. And so the air
Speaker 1: bag is meant to He's spent to help everyone, but
Speaker 1: especially like people that are too too close for comfort. Yes,
Speaker 1: but if you're sitting too clo to the steering column,
Speaker 1: it can hurt you. Yeah, I think, what do they say,
Speaker 1: get yourself ten inches back at least you? Oh wait,
Speaker 1: we're getting weight ahead of ourselves here. Ten inches everyone,
Speaker 1: it is ten inches. You're right. So, um, let's talk
Speaker 1: about let's talk about the original UM idea for the
Speaker 1: air bag. It was you take a thing of compressed
Speaker 1: gas and you have an attached to like basically a
Speaker 1: balloon or a bladder or something like that, or in vacation,
Speaker 1: a hefty bag, and under the right circumstances like maybe
Speaker 1: a crumple, that that compressed gases triggered and it blows
Speaker 1: up the the balloon and you're saved. The problem is
Speaker 1: is there's a lot of issues with this setup. Number one,
Speaker 1: it doesn't work fast enough. The compressed gas still does
Speaker 1: not work fast enough. This is original technology, like the
Speaker 1: stuff they were working with in the seventies. They didn't
Speaker 1: They had an idea that they wanted an inflatable bag,
Speaker 1: but they didn't know how to do it quite yet.
Speaker 1: So the original idea was compressed gas. You know, like um,
Speaker 1: like a night like you're like a whippet, a giant
Speaker 1: whipp it, like your whippe, you know, like what I've
Speaker 1: got in my on the desk, whip it you do
Speaker 1: in between during ad breaks with your cracker. Imagine the
Speaker 1: cracker and a giant whipp it in your steering column. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: that was basically the idea first and so one that
Speaker 1: that whipp it wouldn't inflate the bag. Fast enough. That's
Speaker 1: a big problem because if it doesn't inflate fast enough,
Speaker 1: not only does it not keep you from hitting the
Speaker 1: steering column, it can actually make it worse. There's this
Speaker 1: I think it's like ten Amazing Facts or something about
Speaker 1: airbags on Gelopnik and they have a video on there
Speaker 1: and side by side it is side by side of
Speaker 1: crash tests with the crash test dummies. Um. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: they were like, we were so tired of your music
Speaker 1: in this car, so they they it's side by side
Speaker 1: with crash has dummies and one is an airbag that
Speaker 1: deploys and in the right time. The other one is
Speaker 1: an airbag that deploys late. And the one that deploys late,
Speaker 1: the the dummies head goes forward right and then right
Speaker 1: when it's about to hit the steering wheel, the air
Speaker 1: black airbag inflates and it crushes the guy's head backwards
Speaker 1: at like a ninety degree angle to where it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be. And um, you're just like, oh, that's what
Speaker 1: happens if the airbag deploys late. So the timing is
Speaker 1: really everything. So the idea that it would deploy late
Speaker 1: or not fast enough was not only not good enough,
Speaker 1: it was actually dangerous. Yeah, because the whole idea here
Speaker 1: and sweet Marshall brain includes a whole bit on you know,
Speaker 1: the physics of a car crash. But it's worth noting that,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're driving and you hit something that's
Speaker 1: um with your car, like head on, let's say, Uh,
Speaker 1: everything wants to come to a complete stop that's in
Speaker 1: that car, including your body in your face. Uh, so
Speaker 1: you've you've only got a certain a very very very
Speaker 1: small amount of time to get that bag fully safely inflated.
Speaker 1: As as your head is doing. It's final like alright,
Speaker 1: this is where I want to stop, right exactly, It's
Speaker 1: final resting point. So let's take a break and we'll
Speaker 1: talk more about the physics of the car crash after all. Right, So, Chuck,
Speaker 1: you're saying, like, in a car crash, the car stops
Speaker 1: almost instantly from everything I've seen, Like it's it's so
Speaker 1: close to instantaneous that the shorthand is it stops instantly,
Speaker 1: but you're still moving forward. That's the point of your
Speaker 1: seatbelt is to hold you in place. But the seatbelt
Speaker 1: can cause all sorts of damage in and of itself,
Speaker 1: but it's still better than just flying on buckled into
Speaker 1: the steering column. Yeah, but like you can't um. It
Speaker 1: takes time to stop everything, right, it's it is not instantaneous. No,
Speaker 1: if it were instantaneous, you would crumple like the car. Right,
Speaker 1: So you want they you want to be slowed down
Speaker 1: and in a in a way that's so fast that
Speaker 1: you don't hit the steering column but in but is
Speaker 1: gentle enough that it doesn't just like cut you in
Speaker 1: two bas Okay, it is extremely tricky. So what they
Speaker 1: found out is that if you inflate an air bag,
Speaker 1: you have to First of all, the air bag is
Speaker 1: big enough that it basically has the distance between you
Speaker 1: and the steering column that it's trying to protect you from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is good, but that also means your face is
Speaker 1: that much closer, which shortens that time. Even more shortens
Speaker 1: the time that it can it can deploy in and again,
Speaker 1: remember when you're talking about compressed gas, it just wasn't
Speaker 1: fast enough. So they figured out that you need to
Speaker 1: have an air bag basically get the input that a
Speaker 1: crash is happening, and then deploy within about thirty thousands
Speaker 1: of a second. So if you take one second, you
Speaker 1: chop it into one thousand equal parts. You would tick
Speaker 1: off thirty of them and still have nine hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy left in that second before that airbag has done deploying.
Speaker 1: That's how fast they have to deploy, which is astounding.
Speaker 1: It's amazing that they can do that, but they can
Speaker 1: do it. They finally figured it out, and the way
Speaker 1: that they figured it out was instead of using compressed gas,
Speaker 1: using basically the same thing that they used to power rockets,
Speaker 1: basically solid rocket fuel. Yeah. I mean it's just that
Speaker 1: you it that Um was that vice you said that
Speaker 1: one articles a scientific American? Yeah, yeah, where they basically said,
Speaker 1: for all practical purposes, is a small explosion goes off?
Speaker 1: Oh that one was wired Oh yeah wired y Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a small explosion goes off in your steering wheel
Speaker 1: or I guess on the passenger side in the in
Speaker 1: the dashboard to make this happen, And that in and
Speaker 1: of itself is can be dangerous. It definitely can be.
Speaker 1: And um, they've actually kind of got the chemistry down
Speaker 1: so that, uh, it's as non dangerous as possible when
Speaker 1: everything's working correctly. But they start with something called sodium
Speaker 1: as i'd, which is basically um, sodium and nitrogen compound,
Speaker 1: and when it's just sitting there in its powdered form,
Speaker 1: it's pretty stable. It's fine. But if you apply enough
Speaker 1: heat to it, I think three d degrees celsius, which
Speaker 1: is pretty hot, it it breaks down. It decomposes, and
Speaker 1: when it decomposes it breaks into two different things. One
Speaker 1: is night drogen gas and the other is um sodium,
Speaker 1: just plain old sodium metals. And the nitrogen gas gets
Speaker 1: way bigger than the little handful of sodium aside that
Speaker 1: it grew from. The nitrogen is what is in that bag,
Speaker 1: essentially like filling it up so quickly. The nitrogen gas
Speaker 1: that that grows, Yeah, but isn't a side sodium aside toxic,
Speaker 1: so they have to add other things in there. So
Speaker 1: the sodium aside itself isn't toxic. But the sodium metals
Speaker 1: that is a byproduct incid ignites, they're not actually toxic either.
Speaker 1: But when they combine with water, like water vapor in
Speaker 1: the air, it becomes sodium hydroxide a K A LIE.
Speaker 1: So you don't want LIE flowing through the passenger compartment
Speaker 1: because you're gonna get chemical burns right after your air
Speaker 1: bag goes off. So they add other stuff like potassium
Speaker 1: nitrate I believe to um combine with the salt the
Speaker 1: sodium um to render it inert and then actually produce
Speaker 1: even more nitrogen. Right, So it's filling up a bag
Speaker 1: made of nylon fabric that has folded into that steering well.
Speaker 1: I think there's like talcum powder and stuff to keep
Speaker 1: it supple. Yeah, And if you've ever I mean, I've
Speaker 1: never had an airbag deploy, thankfully while I was in
Speaker 1: a car. But uh, I know that powder is like
Speaker 1: a big part of it, right from what I hear.
Speaker 1: That's what I hear. Uh. And then there's a sensor
Speaker 1: like here's the thing. Everything has to go perfectly because
Speaker 1: you don't want it to go off when it shouldn't um,
Speaker 1: because that's no good. So I think it has to be.
Speaker 1: Is it still accurate to say it's ten to fifteen
Speaker 1: miles an hour hitting a fixed like wall? Essentially? That
Speaker 1: was I think that's all right? Is it? They've decompressed
Speaker 1: that since then they have it, It's it's much less
Speaker 1: um rigid. Okay, So when you when your car hits
Speaker 1: something and stop, suddenly, there's an accelerometer that's measuring the
Speaker 1: deceleration and like five different factors. Okay, yeah, like you
Speaker 1: just went from thirty to zero so fast. We know
Speaker 1: that you've been in a wreck. And it's measuring not
Speaker 1: just this direction, but also that direction to that direction
Speaker 1: to make sure that what's going on is an actual
Speaker 1: like front frontal crash. It sends this data, this raw
Speaker 1: data to a micro controller, a little tiny computer in
Speaker 1: your car. Actually that's part of the air bag um assembly,
Speaker 1: and the microprocessor runs this data through an algorithm. The
Speaker 1: algorithm decides whether it's a front and crash or not,
Speaker 1: and if it is, then it deploys the air bag.
Speaker 1: What it does is it sets off an electric circuit
Speaker 1: which goes and ignites a little charge which blows up
Speaker 1: that sodium hayzide, which then blows into nitrogen gas. Happens
Speaker 1: in thirty thousands of a second. Yeah, Like, if you
Speaker 1: ever I mean, we've certainly gone over enough amazing like
Speaker 1: inventions of mankind through the show. But if you ever
Speaker 1: doubt just how brilliant human kind is, Like look at
Speaker 1: the air bag. Especially engineers, you know, unbelieve off to
Speaker 1: to walk that line of doing this safely because they
Speaker 1: could have given up and been like, cheez, I don't
Speaker 1: think we can. There's no way we can get it
Speaker 1: done that fast safely. Yeah, Like, let's think of another idea.
Speaker 1: But they were like, no, let's stick with the air
Speaker 1: bag naders on us. They said, go get the engineers.
Speaker 1: So that's the new way of doing it. Apparently the
Speaker 1: old way, according to Canada's transportation website, there would be
Speaker 1: a little hollow tube with a ball bearing held in
Speaker 1: place at the end by a magnet. Really, and when
Speaker 1: the car was hit hard enough, the ball bearing would
Speaker 1: be jarred loose from its position. Roll down the right, yeah,
Speaker 1: roll down the tube, and then um complete an electrical
Speaker 1: circuit that would send the ignition or ignite the ignition charge.
Speaker 1: That sounds too much like a Rube Goldberg, which definitely does.
Speaker 1: I think they're like, we can improve on Yeah, geez,
Speaker 1: that's scary. Um all right, I guess we should talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the the ten inches and the
Speaker 1: safety concerns. So apparently placing yourself ten inches from you're
Speaker 1: steering the front of your steering will the the center
Speaker 1: I guess, or that thing pops out is plenty of
Speaker 1: room because they say the first the risk zone is
Speaker 1: two to three inches. Uh, So they say get back
Speaker 1: at least ten inches. And if you're like my mom
Speaker 1: has a little short stuff, and like every time I
Speaker 1: go to move her car, I'm just like, are you
Speaker 1: kidding me? And I'm not even big, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you can't even get in the thing. Um. But they
Speaker 1: say to scowed back as far as you can and
Speaker 1: still drive normally. Uh. And then if you need to
Speaker 1: even tilt that seat back a little bit just to
Speaker 1: get yourself in that sweet spot. Yeah, if you if
Speaker 1: you have to be, if your seat has to be
Speaker 1: as close as possible, at least till your your chair back. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then if you can get it further back, but
Speaker 1: now you're too low you need if you can raise
Speaker 1: your seat automatically, do that too. Marshall Brain even said
Speaker 1: get a pad to sit on if you have to.
Speaker 1: And it's true. You also want to till your steering
Speaker 1: whill so it's facing your chest rather than your head. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is I mean, surely you do that anyway. I
Speaker 1: actually went and double checked mind. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I do. Yeah, I'm a tilt down all the way
Speaker 1: just because it's more comfortable. Um, But some people I
Speaker 1: think have it upward and it's just sitting there blasting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's like you're driving in front of a loaded gun,
Speaker 1: with your face in front of a loaded gun. So
Speaker 1: you want to do it correctly because you kind of
Speaker 1: are uh. For kids, they're a whole host of concerns
Speaker 1: for children, and air bags have killed children, uh in
Speaker 1: the past, And I mean, go and look up all
Speaker 1: the rules yourself. Don't base your life and your children's
Speaker 1: safety on anything we say. But I think that uh,
Speaker 1: I think the current laws or recommendations are, Um, if
Speaker 1: you're under twelve, you you should be in the back
Speaker 1: seat period. Yes, like you shouldn't be riding in the
Speaker 1: front seat, which is way different than when we were kids.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you'd be like bouncing around, like with your
Speaker 1: hands on the dashboard as like a five year old. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just crazy how it used to be. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: it's unbelievable. It's an unbelievable that any of us survived
Speaker 1: to this point. Yeah, that's true. But that's when I
Speaker 1: got a little bit confused about the passenger side on
Speaker 1: off switch because starting at a certain point, they said,
Speaker 1: all right, if you want to get an aftermarket switch
Speaker 1: built in to turn off your air bag or the
Speaker 1: passenger side, you have to fill out this application and
Speaker 1: have a specific um qualifying I guess would you call
Speaker 1: it a hardship, hardship or just reason? Yeah, a reason,
Speaker 1: that's a good way to put it from. And they
Speaker 1: range from like medical condition, sure, just to being too
Speaker 1: small I think too write, or to having a car
Speaker 1: where the back seat was too small to put a
Speaker 1: rear facing um a kid seat. Yes. Yeah, if your
Speaker 1: car was too small and you had to put your
Speaker 1: kids kids seat in the front passenger um in the
Speaker 1: front passenger seat, it was actually preferable to not have
Speaker 1: the air bag there. Yeah. This is where I why
Speaker 1: I got confused is because my pickup truck has that
Speaker 1: on off switch factory installed. And I was just like, no,
Speaker 1: it's just factory installed in my truck. Talking, well, what
Speaker 1: it is is I think all pickup trucks had them.
Speaker 1: Even though I could fit a kid's seat because I
Speaker 1: have the little the back seat thing, I could fit
Speaker 1: a kid's seat rear facing in my truck in the
Speaker 1: back seat truck. But yeah, I'm a big, big dully right.
Speaker 1: Emily saw one of those on the road. The thing
Speaker 1: she's like, does anyone need those extra tires in the
Speaker 1: back those four fifties for four fifties, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I was, you know, the duellis with the four
Speaker 1: wheels in the back, and it's like it's not for show?
Speaker 1: Is that? I think that's actual has a reason. I
Speaker 1: think for like heavy towing or heavy hauling. Oh I
Speaker 1: think it's for show, is it? I think there's a
Speaker 1: real reason. So you know how like no has ever
Speaker 1: been off road? I think it's a similar principle, all right,
Speaker 1: and and and hold your emails. I realized that like
Speaker 1: the hum Vy has been off road. Do you know
Speaker 1: the Hummer I'm talking about the H three's that's the yellow,
Speaker 1: the bright yellow, and exactly that's never been off road
Speaker 1: unless you count like parking up on the curb off
Speaker 1: road because you can't fit it into a space out
Speaker 1: of my way nature. Um so in I think manufacturers
Speaker 1: could actually were allowed to do this. It says ninety
Speaker 1: eight in here, but it was when like a pickup
Speaker 1: truck could have the manufacturer put an on off switching.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing, so we might be confusing you
Speaker 1: at this point, like why would you want to turn
Speaker 1: your air bag off if it's safe. Again, it depends
Speaker 1: on the situation whether your air bag is actually safe.
Speaker 1: If you have a child in a rear facing um
Speaker 1: child seat that's in the front seat, it's better than
Speaker 1: not have your air bag on. Yes, And as a reminder,
Speaker 1: Operation Valkyrie was a larger plan. Sorry, you're never gonna
Speaker 1: let me live that down, are you? From forty five
Speaker 1: minutes ago? Um? Right, it is sometimes more dangerous, so
Speaker 1: that on off switch. And the reason why, I mean
Speaker 1: like there were people who were like, no, airbags kill
Speaker 1: more people than they save. That's not true, but they
Speaker 1: they There was this one study that came out of
Speaker 1: the University of Georgia in two thousand five. The statistician
Speaker 1: I can't remember her name, but she she ran the
Speaker 1: numbers using the full data set. So like the numbers
Speaker 1: that showed that air bags save lives save lives if
Speaker 1: you use only crashes where there is a fatality involved,
Speaker 1: so a specific kind of crash, typically a high speed crash,
Speaker 1: and air bag is probably gonna say of your life.
Speaker 1: What this statistician did um was to take all crashes UM.
Speaker 1: I think it was called like crash Worthy Worthiness Data UM.
Speaker 1: And it was all crashes, which includes low speed crashes too,
Speaker 1: which includes low speed crashes where an air bag went
Speaker 1: off and the person would have otherwise survived but they
Speaker 1: didn't because the airbag killed them. And she found that
Speaker 1: there was a slight increase in the risk of death
Speaker 1: from airbags overall. So there's a lot of like competing information,
Speaker 1: but it seems like the general consensus is that under
Speaker 1: the right conditions, having an air bag in conjunction with
Speaker 1: the seat belt, that's important. Well, yeah, it's very important.
Speaker 1: Where you're sitting back far enough at least ten inches
Speaker 1: away and up high enough, Um, that that is going
Speaker 1: to increase your risk or increase your chances of surviving
Speaker 1: and otherwise fatal crash. But I think like basically is
Speaker 1: the rule of thumb. Like it increases your chances of
Speaker 1: surviving by a third. Not bad. So let's take another break, Chuck,
Speaker 1: and then we'll come back and we'll talk more airbanks.
Speaker 1: So we were talking about kids. Um, if you do
Speaker 1: have a kid that's twelve and up or whatever, the
Speaker 1: recommendation is, Uh, it's still important obviously always wear that
Speaker 1: seat belt, but also have them sitting properly. Um. They
Speaker 1: talk a lot about the fact that kids are smaller,
Speaker 1: so a lot of times they try to sit up
Speaker 1: in their seat more. Um, A lot of times in
Speaker 1: a crash, the kid will go up towards the ceiling
Speaker 1: the roof of the car because of how small they are.
Speaker 1: And so it's really important to have your kid in
Speaker 1: that seat belt with their butt all the way against
Speaker 1: the back of that seat and like staying there and
Speaker 1: shutting up while they're at it, and again back far enough, um,
Speaker 1: at least ten inches away from the Yeah, you put
Speaker 1: that seat back all the way. Uh, and it might
Speaker 1: be like I can't see as much, but again, just
Speaker 1: tell them to shut up. You're looking after their safety. Actually,
Speaker 1: what I what I meant to say was if an
Speaker 1: air bag goes off a child is so light that
Speaker 1: it could lift them up in their seat. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: they're too close and not positioning correctly. That's right. Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: I ran across something. Surprisingly. Did you know that it's
Speaker 1: not um mandated for cars to have airbags in Canada?
Speaker 1: In Canada, it is in the US, but not Canada.
Speaker 1: Didn't that surprise you? That is surprising. So that's not
Speaker 1: a law for new cars. Huh, it's like an option.
Speaker 1: I guess they don't. It's not mandated that new cars
Speaker 1: have bags. Say I want a cigarette lighter in an ashtray,
Speaker 1: No air bag? Right. Um. So you if you paid
Speaker 1: attention to the news at all, you may have heard
Speaker 1: about airbag recalls, especially ones that were made by the
Speaker 1: Japanese from Takata. Man, that's a big problem. I think
Speaker 1: something like thirty seven million recalls cars have been recalled. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it said the nhs I did this in the Pendel.
Speaker 1: The nht s A said it's the largest and most
Speaker 1: complex safety recall in US history because Takata made airbags
Speaker 1: for everybody. Yeah, and they made air bags that could
Speaker 1: possibly send metal shards flying into your face. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was reading about a girl who was man. She was
Speaker 1: like a cheerleader from Oklahoma who had just graduated, was
Speaker 1: like had her whole life ahead of her. Um, she
Speaker 1: was just just as tad as it gets. She went
Speaker 1: to go pick up her little brother. Um. Her name
Speaker 1: was Ashley Parham. She wanted to go pick up her
Speaker 1: little brother from football practice, and I guess like got
Speaker 1: into a tiny fender bender and her air bag went off.
Speaker 1: Well that shouldn't have killed her in and of itself.
Speaker 1: But it turns out that Takata air bags start to
Speaker 1: degrade over time, that UM sodium as i'd actually becomes explosive.
Speaker 1: So when it goes off after its age a certain
Speaker 1: amount of time, it becomes super explosive and it can
Speaker 1: actually blow the canister that holds the air bag part
Speaker 1: and it shoots shrapnel out, and apparently it got her
Speaker 1: in the neck and it was so such a traumatic
Speaker 1: injury that at first they thought she'd been shot and
Speaker 1: she died. You know, they're in her car from the
Speaker 1: air bag. This is the There's millions of cars out
Speaker 1: there on the road right now with the same potential
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, I saw fifteen deaths UM and then
Speaker 1: I saw none of those. At twenty I saw like
Speaker 1: twenty three I think. Yea. So where in that range
Speaker 1: as the amount of people that have been killed just
Speaker 1: from the Takata airbags, not airbags in general. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the the recalled air bags and hundreds and hundreds of
Speaker 1: people injured. H And like you said, they go across UM.
Speaker 1: I don't know every manufacturer, but most Yeah, and not
Speaker 1: just American automobiles or Japanese even, but that like there
Speaker 1: was an Australian one that I saw is being recalled
Speaker 1: like everyone around the world used Takata air bags and
Speaker 1: they are faulty. Yeah, and like you should have gotten
Speaker 1: to notice by now, but take it seriously, um, And
Speaker 1: I know that it's been slow with the fixing of
Speaker 1: it and the rollout of you know, the ones that work.
Speaker 1: It's not like an instantaneous thing to fix thirty seven
Speaker 1: million cars, you know. But even if your air bag
Speaker 1: is working correctly, there's still Remember I said that air
Speaker 1: bags are kind of a work in progress. Uh, And
Speaker 1: part of his educating the public, another part of it
Speaker 1: is just making air bags better at what they do.
Speaker 1: One of the major flaws of air bags is that
Speaker 1: they are the closer you get to a head on
Speaker 1: collision to at twelve o'clock collision, Um, the the better
Speaker 1: they protect you. But the caveat to that is depending
Speaker 1: on how fast you're going. So if you're going really slow,
Speaker 1: they can actually be really problematic because you may not
Speaker 1: even have your seatbelt on, in which case you don't
Speaker 1: want to hit an air bag without a seatbelt lot,
Speaker 1: especially at low speeds. Um, it can mess you up
Speaker 1: pretty good. Yeah, because what you're doing there, Uh. In
Speaker 1: case that doesn't make much sense. You are very quickly
Speaker 1: going well within that ten inch zone because of no
Speaker 1: seat belt keeping you back. And then remember it kind
Speaker 1: of like an air bag deploying too late, it can
Speaker 1: shoot your head backwards and just mess you up pretty good. Um,
Speaker 1: after that, when you have a seatbelt on, or if
Speaker 1: you have a seatbelt on, even if it's ten to
Speaker 1: fifty up to a certain point, say I think like
Speaker 1: sixty kilometers per hour, I'm not sure what that is.
Speaker 1: A miles p um. You are pretty good. You're pretty
Speaker 1: good with your with your air bag. And then after
Speaker 1: that the crash becomes so forceful that it can actually
Speaker 1: mess with the air bag deployment system and the airbag
Speaker 1: might not even go off. So there's actually just a
Speaker 1: window that airbags work well in. And one of the
Speaker 1: big challenges in the industry now is figuring out how
Speaker 1: to make them work of the time in really high
Speaker 1: speed crashes too. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty cool in
Speaker 1: a testament to where we are with safety in the
Speaker 1: world now, and especially in the United States, that they're
Speaker 1: not just like, yep, got got the air bags figured out,
Speaker 1: Let's move on along, right, and they're constantly working on it. Supposedly,
Speaker 1: the National Transportation Safety Board really resisted putting on off
Speaker 1: switch on cars for a long time because they were
Speaker 1: afraid that it was going to be Um, it was
Speaker 1: just gonna be an easy fix for problematic air bags
Speaker 1: where people just turn off the airbags, rather than forcing
Speaker 1: the automotive industry to put more money in time and
Speaker 1: thought into making better air bags. Yeah, which is uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a risky, gambly way of getting
Speaker 1: things done, but it's the way. Yeah, and they, um,
Speaker 1: they work best. Uh, like you said it head on
Speaker 1: because the bumper if you listen to our was it
Speaker 1: crumple zones? Yeah, I think so. Is that a whole podcast? Um,
Speaker 1: you know that front bumper and the engine and the
Speaker 1: whole front of your car takes so much of that
Speaker 1: impact that by the time it gets to you, it's
Speaker 1: it's really really helping the air bag out. Um. Side
Speaker 1: impact is I think there are more side impact accidents
Speaker 1: and more deadly ones because you get t boned and
Speaker 1: it's there is no engine, there is no bumper, just
Speaker 1: that thin door. It happens much faster, yeah, super fast.
Speaker 1: So there are side curtain air bags now on I
Speaker 1: think virtually I think all new cars, right, Um, and
Speaker 1: different depending on the manufacturer. When they were first trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to implement these, they had some
Speaker 1: different strategies. And a BMW I think actually put it
Speaker 1: in the door. Volvo I think put it in the
Speaker 1: back seat, in the side of the back of the
Speaker 1: front seat. Yeah, yeah, the driver's seat. Uh. And they've
Speaker 1: certainly helped a lot. And now I mean some cars
Speaker 1: these days there are air bags all up in them. Right.
Speaker 1: There's something called the front center airbag that comes up
Speaker 1: in between the front passengers so they don't like three
Speaker 1: stooge knock their heads together in the middle of this. Um,
Speaker 1: there's knee passenger knee airbags that blow up around the dashboard. Um.
Speaker 1: There's inflatable seat belts they're working on, which is smart. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of air bags that they're they're basically
Speaker 1: just trying to turn it into one giant marshmallow, which
Speaker 1: is smart. But as long as the giant marshmallows don't
Speaker 1: also like knock your head off of your your body accidentally. Right,
Speaker 1: that's kind of the big challenge. Right now, I have
Speaker 1: safe everyone where that see belt. Yeah. Oh, and one
Speaker 1: more thing. Um, you want to you know, how you
Speaker 1: always hear ten and two is how you're supposed to drive,
Speaker 1: not anymore. I think I've said it before. You want
Speaker 1: to drive at nine and three because at ten and two,
Speaker 1: if the airbag goes off, that hot gas can d
Speaker 1: glove your hands. You love t gloving. It's your favorite
Speaker 1: horrific accident. I'm a solid, solid nooner with my left wrist,
Speaker 1: you're a dead man, or a solid six o'clock with
Speaker 1: with my thumb and my forefinger. You can't do that.
Speaker 1: You have to do better than that. I know it
Speaker 1: sucks to have like nine and nine and three, but
Speaker 1: I'm telling you you have much more control. Come on,
Speaker 1: I'm doing pretty good. I've never been in a bit
Speaker 1: bad wreck. It's good, yeah, knocking all all kinds of wood.
Speaker 1: So Um, if you want to know more about airbags,
Speaker 1: go read up on it. Don't try to deploy them yourselves.
Speaker 1: It's a terrible idea. And since I said that, it's
Speaker 1: time for listening mail. Um. Actually I was in a
Speaker 1: pretty decent wreck when my brother was driving. I think
Speaker 1: I detailed that in previous shows. So if you're out there, jeep, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're out there typing. But what about the jeep incident, which,
Speaker 1: weirdly my rental house right now that I'm in, Well,
Speaker 1: i'm working on my househouse is a jeep, Yeah it is.
Speaker 1: It's an old brown jeep. It's like several hundred yards
Speaker 1: from where that wreck took place. Yeah, and it was
Speaker 1: raining really bad the other day when I was going
Speaker 1: home and at that very same spot, it's just a wash.
Speaker 1: It's like a river running over the road. I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's that's where it happened. Wow, that's where you hydroplane?
Speaker 1: Still dangerous over there? Do you like shake or anything
Speaker 1: as you go past it? No? No, I'm good. Okay,
Speaker 1: I said, just send a picture to my brother and
Speaker 1: make fun of him. I'm gonna call this I don't
Speaker 1: like Dr SEUs. That's you speaking or the author. It's
Speaker 1: the author. Because remember in the show we said who
Speaker 1: doesn't like Dr SEUs? Sofia Cook does not. She gives
Speaker 1: good reasons. I always hated those books as a kid.
Speaker 1: The pictures disturbed me, like what were those things? My
Speaker 1: mother hated him, which is why I never saw the
Speaker 1: books until I was at a friend's house. She refused
Speaker 1: to buy them. When I asked her later. She said
Speaker 1: the poetry was juvenile, uh, and unimaginative. She was an
Speaker 1: English major. Well that too. For example, Dr SEUs would
Speaker 1: just add the same word multiple times just to meet
Speaker 1: the cadence. This is what fifth graders do when they
Speaker 1: can't keep up with more word, When they can't come
Speaker 1: up with more words, she said. I know, because I
Speaker 1: take poetry to fifth graders. She said, for example, from
Speaker 1: red fish bluefish. Uh, some come a long long way.
Speaker 1: Some are very very bad. All he does is yell, yell, yell.
Speaker 1: He likes to drink and drink and drink. It's pretty
Speaker 1: juvenile when you think about it. Oh, is that an
Speaker 1: actual one? Red fish bluefish? Yeah, yeah, she's She's citing
Speaker 1: that as an example. She said. Then there's the lazy
Speaker 1: poetry method. Uh. If you can't find a word to rhyme,
Speaker 1: just make one up. Uh. Cans rhymes with zan's bump. Well,
Speaker 1: of course you have to make up a wump black?
Speaker 1: What about black? No, she's saying black. I know that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm feeling defensive right now for some
Speaker 1: weird I'm a book editor now, guys. I hate this
Speaker 1: stuff more now than when I was a kid and
Speaker 1: felt and just felt disturbed by the strange drawings. I
Speaker 1: just thought i'd weigh in, because not everyone likes Dr Seuss.
Speaker 1: He happened to be in the right place at the
Speaker 1: right time. Book publishing is a fickle and strange business.
Speaker 1: Many fantastic writers never see the light of day, and
Speaker 1: some truly author awful authors make it big. Uh that
Speaker 1: awful she she's bagging on fifty shades of gray. I
Speaker 1: won't say what she said. Thanks for listening, guys, and
Speaker 1: thanks for the stuff. I'll always keep coming back. That
Speaker 1: is from Sophia Cook. I read a book a nook
Speaker 1: and all that cowboy good. Thanks a lot, Sophia, So
Speaker 1: her doctor seused to her is like the way I
Speaker 1: was raised with Chevy Chase So who just made another
Speaker 1: appearance in this episode. Well, if you want to get
Speaker 1: in touch with us to let us know about someone
Speaker 1: you were raised to dislike strongly by your parents. If
Speaker 1: you don't use the H word here, you can visit
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com. Check out our social
Speaker 1: links on that site. You can check me out at
Speaker 1: the Josh Clarkway dot com. And you can send Chuck,
Speaker 1: Jerry and Me an email to Stuff podcast at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com.