A new design for airbag
What do you know about the new airbag Honda is coming out with some time a few years down the road (other than the undeniable fact that they’re hoping a new “improvement” might override the Takata mess)?
What is known: It’s a multi-chamber airbag that Honda is touting as a means of giving added protection to the driver and also the front seat passenger.
The new design is supposed to provide better protection in all front end crashes and is said to be especially beneficial when the impact is at an angle, which causes more severe head rotation, and therefore more severe injuries.
The new one will be designed with three inflatable chambers positioned in such a way that there’s less intense head slamming by the airbag when it deploys.
Right now, it appears that the new airbag will be in 2022 Hondas.
We are car shopping (mostly through brochures right now), and some of the write-ups say the car in question has active safety technology, and some make reference
to passive safety technology. I’m sure there’s a difference, but I can’t tell from reading them what each would encompass.
Passive safety systems are intended to help minimize injuries when there is a crash. Seat belts and airbags are examples, as are head restraints and auto-dim mirrors.
Active safety systems are intended to help avoid the accident or mitigate it. Those would include adaptive cruise control, for example, which automatically slows down the car when you’re on cruise control and come up too close to the vehicle in front of you, and lane-keeping assistance, which helps when you are creeping out of your lane. There’s even something called pedestrian detection, which can detect pedestrians (or, in some systems, bicyclists), issue a warning, and then trigger emergency braking if necessary.
Another less frequently used term for active safety systems is “primary safety systems,” a series of words that gives no hint as to what the system might be designed to accomplish. You’ll probably run into that one sometimes too when you’re going through the information from various carmakers.
What’s your question? Sharon Peters would like to hear about what’s on your mind when it comes to caring for, driving and repairing your vehicle. Email Sharon@ctwfeatures.com.