Quote:
Originally Posted by daepp
Once again I learn something new.
What I thought I knew was that the airbags were there mostly for those who failed to buckle up.
But what I think I learned is that if you fail to wear your seatbelt you also have no airbag. Is that correct?
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I thought the same, too. Airbags (and remember those motorized mouse belts?) were mandated back in the 1980s as protection in case a driver/front seat passenger failed to wear a seat belt. The whole point was that if you weren't smart enough to don the seatbelt to protect yourself, the car would already have some method in place to do so.
Mercedes used to call their airbag system SRS: Supplemental Restraint System. Said so right there embossed on the steering wheel cover. A major directive of airbags were to protect an occupant in case they didn't wear a belt.
So in the intervening 30 years, the regulations have changed such that an airbag won't go off unless the seat belt has been worn? That seems to circumvent a major reason why airbags were mandated in the first place.