I was hit on the side, airbag malfunction

[brendae57]

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? Illinois

Im pretty sure it was an airbag malfunction. I was hit by a police officer on the left side of the car, and the passenger side airbag went off. A few minutes later , as I was outside talking to the officer, the drivers side airbag went off. Not only did it go off late, it went off totally deflated. There was no air in it at all, if I had been in there when I actually crashed, it would have just presented the inside of the steering wheel for my body to crash into.

I went to the emergency room and only had a couple of bruises, Im instructed to take a couple days off of work. Is there any basis for a suit here? Its kind of disheartening to know that if there is a bad wreck, the airbag may not inflate

Thank you

[teflon_jones]

Being disheartened is not a basis for a lawsuit.

There may be a perfectly good explanation for why the airbags behaved as they did.

[racer72]

Read your owner's manual, especially the part about airbags. Manufacturers make no claims that the airbags will work in all accidents and they include a disclaimer that says as much.

[brendae57]

Ok, I read the manual, it did say that the airbag may not deploy in all accidents and that there are a lot of vairables in determining whether or not to deploy. It said nothing about the airbag coming out deflated however.

[longneck]

airbags don't behave like you see on the simpsons. they inflate and deflate in less than a second. according to this webpage ([url]http://auto.howstuffworks.com/airbag1.htm[/url]) the inflate and deflate in 1/25 of a second. you will NEVER see a full airbag, and if you do, it's broken.

[brendae57]

Ok, well then if they do stay deflated then they are broken? My passenger side airbag was still fully inflated when they towed the car.

[teflon_jones]

Airbags will retain some amount of air after inflating. Exactly how much depends on a lot of factors. They can appear almost full, or almost empty.