[LMB] Airbags OT:

[Peter H. Granzeau]

At 10:23 AM 11/13/2007, Paula Lieberman wrote:

>There was a lot of discussion in the news some months back about the
>sensors' settings--the requirement imposed was to stop substantiative damage
>to a large male not using a seatbelt... that those settings KILL women my
>size, apparently wasn't considered important enough as design consideration
>to occur... (that is, the requirement got set WITHOUT bothering to pay ANY
>attention to the EXISTENCE of small women, much less as -drivers-.... It's
>sort of like all those ancient jokes about female drivers-- the REASON why
>there were so many of those jokes, is that the sight lines out of cars were
>so bad for anyone -short-, and female humans tend to be ON THE AVERAGE
>several inches shorter than male humans--and the car designers were almost
>universally -male- designing for -themselves- and THEIR sight lines.  The
>same thing got applied by the MALES who made up the rules for
>airbags--stopping significant damage to an overweight typical large US male
>who's NOT wearing a seatbelt and is sitting with the seat pushed all the way
>back, requires enough an airbag expanding with enough force close-in that a
>small child, or woman, can die from the effects.   Force involved an inverse
>square law--that airbag to stop the 280 pound male who's sitting  two feet
>back from the steering wheel, has a lot more force when it's still inflating
>where MY face is only a few INCHES from the @(^(@# steering wheel.. the
>airbag's s designed to stop the large male TORSO, and THAT is where MY FACE
>is....
>
>Gender and size and shape bigot ENDEMIC!

I think that the same thinking for seat belts (that they be strong 
enough to restrain the largest person) might have been placed on 
airbags, without, obviously, considering the effect on smaller passengers.

Engineers ain't perfect.


-- 
Regards, Pete
pgranzeau at cox.net