Stuff You Should Know - How Airbags Work

Episode Date: January 15, 2019

It turns out that the inflatable bag of air that shoots out of your steering wheel or dashboard is the result of a controlled explosion of solid fuel, just like in a rocket – aimed for your face. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey friends, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba, who got the idea to Airbnb the Backyard Guest House over childhood home. Now the extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at Airbnb.ca slash host. On the podcast, HeyDude the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and

dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to HeyDude the 90s called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from House StuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Tuck Bryant, and there's Jerry, and this is Airbags. Airbags edition. I'm surprised we hadn't done this one yet. It seems so Stuff You Should Know. It does. And it's just been sitting out there ready to explode in your face. Yes, hopefully in the best way possible. And I also had a bit of a hard time because this article we should mention is from Marshall

Brain, who was the original inventor of the House StuffWorks website 90 years ago. In his kitchen. Yeah. So he used to write everything. And then, boy, it's been through so many changes since then. But this article that was like he keeps talking about like looking forward to 1998 and what's in store for us. So it's kind of hard to find out what was still legit and what wasn't. But I got the nuts and bolts of it, I think. What's weird is it seems like a lot of the regulation is exactly the same. Yeah. Which is, I mean, like I ran in the same thing too. Like I'd go look up stuff and I'd be like, well, wait, they're saying the same thing. But this says 2016 or 2018 or something. I don't think regulations have

changed all that much. I think you're right. I got tripped up a little bit with the factory installed off switch for passenger side. And I finally figured all that out, I think. Oh, good. Save it. It's gold. It's so exciting. Just wait. What's weird is this is a stuff you should know topic. It really is. I just realized how boring stuff you should know can be. Chuck, let's start with history, shall we? Yeah. So apparently when I think of airbags, I think of like the 90s. That's airbag era to me. No, there have been airbags in cars in the United States going back to the 70s as far as like mass produced commercially available airbags, especially driver side. And then I think even a little later in the

70s, passenger side airbags came around. I had no idea. You know, well, you hate Chevy Chase, right? Have you ever seen Vacation, the first one? Sure. Well, there's an airbag in there. That was in 1983. Oh, yeah. He jumps over the gulch and crashes his car. And as he's opening his door, the air quote, unquote, airbag goes off, which is clearly like a trash bag. And it's clearly coming from outside the car on the ground because he opens the door and it comes up really quick. Like they couldn't figure out a way even in 83 to make it look like it came out of the steering wheel. Right. The director was like, is that what an airbag looks like? And the special effects guys like, do you know what an airbag looks

like? No. Yeah. And do you have any more blow? I don't know if that was Chevy Chase based or just making movies in the 80s. Making movies in the 80s. The cocaine reference. Oh, yeah. That was everything in the 80s. But apparently when was it 1953 that an engineering tech from Pennsylvania named John Hettrick put a patent on a design for what he called a safety cushion assembly for automotive, automotive vehicles. He said automotive. Maybe that's where he went wrong. Right. Because he took it to Ford and GM and Chrysler. And of course, they're all like, if you listen to our Pinto right episode, they're like, we got cars that are killing burning people alive. You think we care about your airbag? Yeah. He just got

crickets back. Yeah, he got nothing. And it stayed that way until another guy from the Pinto episode Ralph Nader wrote in his book, Unsafe at Any Speed, that airbags along with seatbelts in conjunction with seatbelts would save lives big time. And he was right actually even still to this day, the sweet spot for surviving a terrible crash is a seatbelt and an airbag both working perfectly to save your life. That's right. But the idea behind airbags was, well, seatbelts, I think, became part of federal regulations in the United States in I think 1965, 67. As in installed. Yeah. But like no one wore them. Right. There was no law that said you had to wear them for many, many years. And so only about a quarter

of Americans wore them. So people were still dying in car wrecks, even though their cars had seatbelts because they weren't wearing them because they were idiots. So people said, well, maybe we'll put in these airbags. These are passive safety features. A seatbelt is technically an active safety feature because unless you have one of those, what was it, a Honda Prelude where like you'd open the door in the seat, the shoulder belt. Yeah. And then you close it and it go over you. I forgot about those. Even still you had to do the lap belt part yourself. So that's technically active. That's right. You have to do something to put it on. An airbag is different where you are just sitting there and it does it

whether you want it to or not. It's a passive safety feature. So they said, well, maybe if we put airbags in, it will save lives. And so they started putting airbags in. Yeah. And then I'm sure even back then there were people that like government regulating socialists trying to save me. Yeah. Can't even turn off this airbag. That's a good Whalen Jennings. I wish I could do a good Whalen Jennings. I wouldn't be doing the show. Just be out on the road. Really? With my act. Oh yeah. That hurts. I'd bring you along. Oh, okay. Maybe a little Whalen. I'd say Whalen Jennings. So I think starting in what? 1998. Like they started putting them out and finally in the 70s and the 80s. But in 1988 is when they

said. 98. What did I say? 88. Yeah. 98 is when they said finally all new cars got to have these airbags. Yeah. For the frontal airbags at least. For the driver and the passenger side frontal. Yeah. It was still a little bit before the side impact bags were mandatory. And they said, okay, well everybody's saved. The world is saved because we have airbags now so no one's ever going to die in a crash. And then people started saying, wait a minute. I just read about this person who was an offender bender and their airbag went off and it killed them. Yeah. What about that? And so they started looking into airbags a little bit and they said, oh, okay. Well, maybe this is something what you call work in progress. Yeah. And still

to this day airbag technology, this passive safety technology is a work in progress because part of airbag technology is also educating the public and how to use it correctly because an airbag is not a soft little pillow that you are like, well, after this crash, I guess I'll just take a nap here. It's basically like a punch to your face. Yeah. That inflates very quickly and is meant to keep you from eating the steering column, which apparently you can do in a high enough speed crash. Your seatbelt, even when you're wearing it correctly and you're sitting where you're supposed to be, you can still be forced into the steering column. Yeah. The point of the airbag, especially for the driver, is that it provides a barrier

between you and the steering column. It's not a comfortable barrier, but it's a barrier that will keep your chest from caving in. Yeah. And obviously people are more at risk if you're, you know, let's say you're a little short stuff and you got to hike that seat way forward. Yeah. In order to drive, you're that much closer physically to the steering column. Uh-huh. And so the airbag is meant to, I mean, it's meant to help everyone, but especially like people that are too close for comfort. Yes. But if you're sitting too close to the steering column, it can hurt you. Yeah. I think what do they say? Get yourself 10 inches back at least. Oh, wait. We're getting way ahead of ourselves here. All right. 10

inches, everyone. It is 10 inches. You're right. So let's talk about, let's talk about the original idea for the airbag. Okay. It was, you take a thing of compressed gas and you have it attached to like basically a balloon or a bladder or something like that. Or in vacation, a hefty bag. Yeah. And under the right circumstances, like maybe a crumple that compressed gas is triggered and it blows up the balloon and you're saved. The problem is, is there's a lot of issues with this setup. Number one, it doesn't work fast enough. Still? The compressed gas still does not work fast enough. This is original technology. Oh, okay. Like this stuff they were working with in the 70s, they didn't, they had an idea that

they wanted an inflatable bag, but they didn't know how to do it quite yet. So the original idea was compressed gas. Right. You know, like a whip it, a giant whip it. Like your whip it? You know. Like what I've got in my finger on the desk. The whip it you do in between during ad breaks with your cracker. Imagine the cracker and a giant whip it in your steering column. Yeah. Okay. That was basically the idea first. And so one, that whip it wouldn't inflate the bag fast enough. That's a big problem because if it doesn't inflate fast enough, not only does it not keep you from hitting the steering column, it can actually make it worse. There's this, I think it's like 10 amazing facts or something about airbags

on Jalopnik and they have a video on there. It's a side by side. It is. Side by side of crash tests with the crash test dummies. You mean the band? Yes. They were like, we're so tired of your music. Get in this car. So they, it's side by side with crash test dummies. And one is an airbag that deploys in the right time. The other one is an airbag that deploys late and the one that deploys late, the dummies head goes forward, right? And then right when it's about to hit the steering wheel, the airbag inflates and it crushes the guy's head backwards at like a 90 degree angle to where it's supposed to be. Yeah. And you're just like, oh, that's what happens if the airbag deploys late. So the timing is really everything.

So the idea that it would deploy late or not fast enough was not only not good enough, it was actually dangerous. Yeah, because the whole idea here and sweet Marshall Brain includes a whole bit on, you know, the physics of a car crash. Yeah. But it's worth noting that, you know, when you're driving and you hit something that's with your car, like head on, let's say, everything wants to come to a complete stop that's in that car, including your body and your face. Right. So you've, you've only got a certain, a very, very, very small amount of time to get that bag fully safely inflated as your head is doing its final, like, all right, this is where I want to stop. Right. Exactly. It's final resting

point. So let's take a break. Okay. And we'll talk more about the physics of the car crash after. All right. Hey, friends, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba, who got the idea to Airbnb, the backyard guest house over childhood home. Now the extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca slash host.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co stars, friends and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial up sound like poltergeist? So

leave a code on your best friends beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So Chuck, you're saying like in a car crash, the car stops almost instantly from everything I've seen. Like it's so close to instantaneous that the shorthand is it stops instantly, but you're still moving forward. Yes. That's the point of your seat belt is to hold you

in place, but the seat belt can cause all sorts of damage in and of itself, but it's still better than just flying unbuckled into the steering column. Yeah, but like you can't, it takes time to stop everything. Right. It is not instantaneous. No, if it were instantaneous, you would crumple like the car. Right. So you want to be slowed down in a way that's so fast that you don't hit the steering column, but in, but is gentle enough that it doesn't just like cut you in two. Yeah. Okay. Very tricky. It is extremely tricky. So what they found out is that if you inflate an airbag, you have to, first of all, the airbag is big enough that it basically has the distance between you and the steering column that it's

trying to protect you from. Yeah, which is good, but that also means your face is that much closer, which shortens that time even more. Shortens the time that it can deploy in. And again, remember when you're talking about compressed gas, it just wasn't fast enough. So they figured out that you need to have an airbag, basically get the input that a crash is happening and then deploy within about 30,000ths of a second. So if you take one second and you chop it into 1000 equal parts, you would tick off 30 of them and still have 970 left in that second before that airbag's done deploying. Yeah. That's how fast they have to deploy, which is astounding. It's amazing that they can do that, but they can

do it. They finally figured it out. And the way that they figured it out was instead of using compressed gas, using basically the same thing that they used to power rockets, basically solid rocket fuel. Yeah. I mean, you sent that, was that VICE? You sent that one article? No, it was the Scientific American. Yeah. Yeah. Where they basically said, for all practical purposes, is a small explosion goes off. Oh, that one was wired. Oh, yeah, wired. Yeah. Yeah. Like a small explosion goes off in your steering wheel, or I guess on the passenger side in the dashboard to make this happen. And that in and of itself is can be dangerous. It definitely can be. And they've actually kind of got the chemistry

down so that it's as non-dangerous as possible when everything's working correctly. But they start with something called sodium azide, which is basically sodium and nitrogen compound. And when it's just sitting there in its powdered form, it's pretty stable. It's fine. But if you apply enough heat to it, I think 300 degrees Celsius, which is pretty hot, it breaks down. It decomposes. And when it decomposes, it breaks into two different things. One is nitrogen gas, and the other is sodium, just plain old sodium metals. And the nitrogen gas gets way bigger than the little handful of sodium azide that it grew from. Yeah. The nitrogen is what is in that bag, essentially, like filling it up so quickly. Right. The nitrogen

gas that grows. Yeah. But isn't sodium azide toxic, so they have to add other things in there. So the sodium azide itself isn't toxic, but the sodium metals that is a byproduct once it ignites, they're not actually toxic either. But when they combine with water, like water vapor in the air, it becomes sodium hydroxide, aka lye. So you don't want lye flowing through the passenger compartment because you're going to get chemical burns right after your airbag goes off. So they add other stuff, like potassium nitrate, I believe, to combine with the salt, the sodium to render it inert and then actually produce even more nitrogen. Right. So it's filling up a bag made of nylon fabric that is folded into that steering

well. I think there's like talcum powder and stuff. Yeah, to keep it supple. Yeah. And if you've ever, I mean, I've never had an airbag deploy, thankfully, while I was in a car. But I know that powder is like a big part of it, right? Right. From what I hear? Yeah, that's what I hear. And then there's a sensor, like here's the thing, everything has to go perfectly because you don't want it to go off when it shouldn't because that's no good. Right. So I think it has to be, is it still accurate to say it's 10 to 15 miles an hour hitting a fixed like wall, essentially? That was, I think that's 1998 rules. All right. They've decompressed that since then. They have it, it's much less rigid. Okay. So when

your car hits something and stops suddenly, there's an accelerometer. Yeah. That's measuring the deceleration and like five different factors. Okay. Yeah, like you just went from 30 to zero so fast. Right. We know that you've been in a wreck and it's measuring not just this direction, but also that direction and that direction to make sure that what's going on is an actual like front frontal crash. It sends this data, this raw data to a microcontroller, little tiny computer in your car, actually that's part of the airbag assembly. And the microprocessor runs this data through an algorithm. The algorithm decides whether it's a front and crash or not. And if it is, then it deploys the airbag. What it does is it sets off an

electric circuit, which goes and ignites a little charge, which blows up that sodium hazide, which then blows into nitrogen gas. It's crazy. All of this happens in 30 thousandths of a second. Yeah, like if you ever, I mean, we've certainly gone over enough amazing like inventions of mankind through the show. But if you ever doubt just how brilliant humankind is like look at the airbag. Especially engineers. You know, it's unbelievable to walk that line of doing this safely because it could have given up and been like, geez, I don't think we can, there's no way we can get it done that fast, that safely. Like let's think of another idea. But they were like, no, let's stick with the airbag. Nader's on us. They

said go get the engineers. So that's the new way of doing it. Apparently the old way, according to Canada's transportation website, there would be a little hollow tube with a ball bearing held in place at the end by a magnet. Really? And when the car was hit hard enough, the ball bearing would be jarred loose from its position, roll down the right, yeah, roll down the tube and then complete an electrical circuit that would send the ignition or ignite the ignition charge. Wow, that sounds too much like a Rube Goldberg machine. Definitely does. I think they're like, we can improve on this. Yeah, geez, that's scary. All right, so I guess we should talk a little bit about the 10 inches and the safety concerns. Right.

So apparently placing yourself 10 inches from your steering, the front of your steering wheel, the center, I guess, where that thing pops out is plenty of room because they say the first, the risk zone is two to three inches. Right. So they say get back at least 10 inches. And if you're like my mom, who's a little short stuff and like, every time I go to move her car, I'm just like, are you kidding me? And I'm not even big and I'm like, you can't even get in the thing. But they say to scoot back as far as you can and still drive normally. And then if you need to even tilt that seat back a little bit, just to get yourself in that sweet spot. Yeah, if you have to be, if your seat has to be as close as possible,

at least tilt your chair back. Yeah. And then if you can get it further back, but now you're too low, you need, if you can raise your seat automatically, do that too. Yeah. Marshall Brain even says, get a pad to sit on if you have to. And it's true. You also want to tilt your steering wheel so it's facing your chest rather than your head. Yeah, which is, I mean, surely you do that anyway. I actually went and double checked mine. I was like, oh, okay, I do. Yeah, I'm a tilt down all the way. I am just because it's more comfortable. Right. But some people, I think, have it upward and it's just sitting there blasting like driving in a bus. Yeah. But it's like you're driving in front of a loaded gun. Yeah. With your

face in front of a loaded gun. So you want to do it correctly because you kind of are. For kids, there are a whole host of concerns for children. And airbags have killed children in the past. And I mean, go and look up all the rules yourself. Don't base your life and your children's safety on anything we say. But I think that, I think the current laws or recommendations are, if you're under 12, you should be in the backseat period. Yes. Like you shouldn't be riding in the front seat, which is way different than when we were kids. Oh yeah, you'd be like bouncing around like with your hands on the dashboard. It's like a five year old. Right. Yeah. It's just crazy how it used to be. Yeah. Man, it's

unbelievable. It's unbelievable that any of us survived to this point. Yeah, that's true. But that's when I got a little bit confused about the passenger side on off switch because starting at a certain point, they said, all right, if you want to get an aftermarket switch built in to turn off your airbag or the passenger side, you have to fill out this application and have a specific qualifying, I guess, would you call it a hardship? A hardship or a reason. Yeah, a reason. That's a good way to put it. And they range from like medical conditions. Sure, just to being too small, I think too, right? Or to having a car where the backseat was too small to put a rear facing kid seat. Yes. Yeah. If your car was too small and you

had to put your kid's kid seat in the front passenger seat, it's actually preferable to not have the airbag there. Yeah, this is why I got confused is because my pickup truck has that on off switch factory installed. Right. And I was just like, no, it's just factory installed in my truck. That's 1998 talking. Well, what it is, is I think all pickup trucks had them, even though I could fit a kid seat because I have the little, the backseat thing, I could fit a kid seat rear facing in my truck. Oh, wow. In the backseat. It's a giant truck. But yeah, my big, my big Dooley. Right. Emily saw one of those on the road the other day. She's like, why does anyone need those extra tires in the back?

Are those 450s? Ford 450s? I don't know. But I was, you know, the Dooley's with the four wheels in the back. And I, so it's not for show, is that I think that's actually has a reason, I think for like heavy towing or heavy hauling. Oh, I think it's for show. Is it? I think so. No, I think there's a real reason. So you know how like no, surely that's not all. No Hummer has ever been off road. Well, sure. I think it's a similar principle. Really? All right. And then hold your emails. I realize that like Dooley drivers Hum V has been off road. Do you know the Hummer? I'm talking about the H3s. The yellow, the bright yellow one. Exactly. That's never been off road. Unless you count like parking

up on the curb off road because you can't fit it into a space. Out of my way, nature. So in 95, I think manufacturers could actually were allowed to do this. It says 98 in here, but it was a 95 when like a pickup truck could have the manufacturer put an on off switch in. But here's the thing. So we might be confusing you at this point. Like why would you want to turn your airbag off if it's safe? Right. Again, it depends on the situation whether your airbags actually safe. If you have a child in a rear facing child seat that's in the front seat, it's better to not have your airbag on. Yes. And as a reminder, Operation Valkyrie was a larger plan. Sorry. You're never gonna let me live that down, are you?

45 minutes ago. Right. It is sometimes more dangerous. So that on off switch. And the reason why, I mean, like there were people who were like, no, airbags kill more people than they save. That's not true. But they, they, there was this one study that came out of the University of Georgia in 2005, the statistician. I can't remember her name, but she, she ran the numbers using the full data set. So like the numbers that showed that airbags save lives, save lives if you use only crashes where there's a fatality involved. So a specific kind of crash, typically a high speed crash. Yeah. And airbags probably gonna save your life. What this statistician did was to take all crashes. I think it was called

like crash worthy, worthiness data. And it was all crashes, which includes low speed crashes too, which includes low speed crashes where an airbag went off and the person would have otherwise survived, but they didn't cause the airbag killed them. And she found that there was a slight increase in the risk of death from airbags overall. So there's a lot of like competing information, but it seems like the general consensus is that under the right conditions, having an airbag in conjunction with the seat belt. Yeah, that's important. Well, yeah, it's very important where you're sitting back far enough at least 10 inches away and up high enough that that is going to increase your risk or increase

your chances of surviving what an otherwise fatal crash. Right. But I think like 30% basically is the rule of thumb. Like it increases your chances of surviving by a third. Not bad. So let's take another break, Chuck, and then we'll come back and we'll talk more airbags. Hey, friends, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba, who got the idea to Airbnb the Backyard Guest House over childhood home. Now the extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca slash

host. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound

like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So we were talking about kids. If you do have a kid that's 12 and up or whatever the recommendation is, it's still important, obviously, always wear that seatbelt, but also have them sitting properly. They talk a lot about the fact that kids are smaller. So a lot of times they try to sit up in their seat more. A lot

of times in a crash, the kid will go up toward the ceiling, the roof of the car, because of how small they are. And so it's really important to have your kid in that seatbelt with their butt all the way against the back of that seat and staying there and shutting up while they're at it. Yeah. And again, back far enough, at least 10 inches away from the back. Yeah. I put that seat back all the way. And they might be like, I can't see as much. But again, just tell them to shut up. Yeah. You're looking after their safety. Yes. Actually, what I meant to say was if an airbag goes off, a child is so light that it could lift them up in their seat. Right. Yeah. If they're too close. Correct. And not positioned correctly.

That's right. Okay. I ran across something surprising. Did you know that it's not mandated for cars to have airbags in Canada? In Canada. Really? It is in the U.S., but not Canada. Huh. Didn't that surprise you? That is surprising. But that's not a law for new cars, huh? It's like an option, I guess. Yeah. It's not mandated that new cars have airbags. Say, I want a cigarette lighter and an ashtray, no airbag. Right. So if you've paid attention to the news at all, you may have heard about airbag recalls, especially ones that were made by the Japanese firm, Takata. Man, that's a big problem. I think something like 37 million cars have been recalled. Yeah. It said the NHS. I did this in the pinto. The NHTSA said

it's the largest and most complex safety recall in U.S. history. Because Takata made airbags for everybody. Yeah. And they made airbags that could possibly send metal shards flying into your face. Yeah. I was reading about a girl who was, man, she was like a cheerleader from Oklahoma who had just graduated, had her whole life ahead of her. She was just as sad as it gets. She went to go pick up her little brother. Her name was Ashley Parham. She went to go pick up her little brother from football practice and I guess got into a tiny fender bender and her airbag went off. Well, that shouldn't have killed her in and of itself, but it turns out that Takata airbags start to degrade over time. Yeah. That sodium

azide actually becomes explosive. So when it goes off after it's aged a certain amount of time, it becomes super explosive and it can actually blow the canister that holds the airbag and that's the metal part and it shoots shrapnel out and apparently it got her in the neck and it was such a traumatic injury that at first they thought she'd been shot. Wow. And she died there in her car from the airbag. There's millions of cars out there on the road right now with the same potential going on. Yeah. I saw 15 deaths and then I saw numbers at 20. I saw like 23, I think. Yeah. So somewhere in that range is the amount of people that have been killed. Just from the Takata airbags, not airbags in general.

Yeah. Yeah. The recalled airbags and hundreds and hundreds of people injured. And like you said, they go across, I don't know, every manufacturer, but most. Yeah. And not just American automobiles or Japanese even, but like there was an Australian one that I saw being recalled. Like everyone around the world used Takata airbags and they are faulty. Yeah. And like you should have gotten a notice by now, but take it seriously. And I know that it's been slow with the fixing of it and the rollout of the ones that work. Right. It's not like an instantaneous thing to fix 37 million cars. Right. You know. But even if your airbag is working correctly, there's still, remember I said that airbags are kind of a work in

progress. Yeah. And part of it is educating the public. Another part of it is just making airbags better at what they do. One of the major flaws of airbags is that the closer you get to a head on collision to a 12 o'clock collision, the better they protect you. But the caveat to that is depending on how fast you're going. Right. So if you're going really slow, they can actually be really problematic because you may not even have your seatbelt on, in which case you don't want to hit an airbag without a seatbelt on, especially at low speeds. It can mess you up pretty good. Yeah. Because what you're doing there in case it doesn't make much sense, you are very quickly going well within that 10 inch zone. Right.

Because of the note seatbelt keeping you back. And then remember it kind of like an airbag deploying too late. It can shoot your head backward and just mess you up pretty good. After that, when you have a seatbelt on or if you have a seatbelt on, even if it's 10 to 15 miles an hour, up to a certain point, say I think like 65 kilometers per hour. I'm not sure what that is miles par. You are pretty good. You're pretty good with your airbag. And then after that, the crash becomes so forceful that it can actually mess with the airbag deployment system and the airbag might not even go off. Wow. So there's actually just a window that airbags work well in. And one of the big challenges in the industry

now is figuring out how to make them work a hundred percent of the time in really high speed crashes too. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty cool in a testament to where we are with safety in the world now and especially in the United States that they're not just like, yep, got the airbags figured out. Let's move on along. Right. And they're constantly working on it. Supposedly the National Transportation Safety Board really resisted putting on-off switch on cars for a long time because they were afraid that it was going to be, it was just going to be an easy fix for problematic airbags where people just turn off the airbags rather than forcing the automotive industry to put more money and time and thought into

making better airbags. Yeah. Which is, you know, it's a risky, gambly way of getting things done, but it's the way. Yeah. And they work best, like you said, head on because the bumper, if you listen to our, was it Crumple Zones? Yeah, I think so. Is that a whole podcast? I think so. They were called? Yeah. You know, that front bumper and the engine and the whole front of your car takes so much of that impact that by the time it gets to you, it's really, really helping the airbag out. Side impact is, I think there are more side impact accidents and more deadly ones because you get T-boned and there is no engine, there is no bumper, just that thin door. It happens much faster. Yeah, super fast. So there are side curtain

airbags now on, I think, virtually, I think all new cars, right? Mm-hmm. And depending on the manufacturer, when they were first trying to figure out how to implement these, they had some different strategies. I know BMW, I think, actually put it in the door. Volvo, I think, put it in the back seat? In the back of the seat. In the side of the back of the front seat. Yeah, yeah. The driver's seat. And they've certainly helped a lot. And I mean, some cars these days, there are airbags all up in them. Right. There's something called the front center airbag that comes up in between the front passenger so they don't like three stooge, knock their heads together in the middle of this. There's passenger

knee airbags that blow up around the dashboard. There's inflatable seatbelts they're working on, which is smart. There's a lot of airbags that they're basically just trying to turn it into one giant marshmallow, which is smart, but as long as the giant marshmallow is doing also like knock your head off of your body. Right. Accidentally. Right. That's kind of the big challenge right now. Drive safe, everyone. Yeah. Wear that seatbelt. Yeah. Oh, and one more thing. You want to, you know how you always hear 10 and 2 is how you're supposed to drive? Mm-hmm. Not anymore. I think I've said it before. You want to drive at 9 and 3. Oh, really? Because at 10 and 2, if that airbag goes off, that hot gas can de-glove

your hands. Oh, you love de-gloving. Mm-hmm. It's your favorite horrific accident. Mm-hmm. I'm a solid, uh, solid nooner with my left wrist. You're a dead man. Uh, or a solid six o'clock with my thumb and my forefinger. You can't do that. You have to do better than that. I know it sucks to have like 9 and 3, but I'm telling you, you have much more control. Come on. No, I'm doing pretty good. I've never been in a bad wreck. It's good. Yeah, knocking on all kinds of wood. So, um, if you want to know more about airbags, go read up on it. Don't try to deploy them yourself. That's a terrible idea. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. Um, actually, I was in a pretty decent wreck when my brother was

driving. I think I've detailed that in previous shows. Oh, yeah. If you're out there. A Jeep. Yeah. If you're out there typing, but what about the Jeep incident? Which weirdly, my rental house right now that I'm in while I'm working on my househouse. Is it Jeep? Yeah, it is. It's an old brown Jeep. Uh, it's like several hundred yards from where that wreck took place. Oh, really? Yeah. And it was raining really bad the other day when I was going home and at that very same spot, it's just a wash. It's like a river running over the road. I'm like, that's, that's where it happened. Wow. It's where you hydroplane. Geez. It's still dangerous over there. Do you like shake or anything as you go past it? No, no. Yeah.

I'm good. Okay. I should just send a picture to my brother and make fun of him. Uh, I'm going to call this, uh, I don't like Dr. Seuss. Okay. That's you speaking or the author? It's the author. Cause remember in the show we said, who doesn't like Dr. Seuss? Sophia Cook does not. Okay. She gives good reasons. Uh, I always hated those books as a kid. The pictures disturbed me like, what were those things? My mother hated them, which is why I never saw the books until I was at a friend's house. She refused to buy them. When I asked her later, she said the poetry was juvenile, uh, and unimaginative. She was an English major and racist. Well, that too. Uh, for example, uh, Dr. Seuss would just add the same word multiple times just to meet the cadence.

This is what fifth graders do when they can't keep up with more word, when they can't come up with more words. Wow. This is harsh. She said, I know, because I taught poetry to fifth graders. Uh, she said, for example, from redfish bluefish, uh, some come a long, long way. Some are very, very bad. All he does is yell, yell, yell. He likes to drink and drink and drink. It's pretty juvenile when you think about it. Oh, is that an actual one redfish bluefish? Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, she's citing that as an example. Yeah, okay. She said, then there's, uh, the lazy poetry method. Uh, if you can't find a word to rhyme, just make one up. Cans, rhymes with zans. Fish. What are those? Bump. Well, of course, you have to make up a

wump. Blech. What about blech? No, she's saying blech. I know that's a made up word. I don't know. I'm feeling defensive right now for some weird reason. Uh, I'm a book editor now, guys. I hate this stuff more now than when I was a kid and felt this, and just felt disturbed by the strange drawings. Just thought I'd weigh in because not everyone likes Dr. Seuss. Uh, he happened to be in the right place at the right time. Book publishing is a fickle and strange business. Many fantastic writers never see the light of day and some truly author, uh, awful authors make it big. Uh, that awful, oh, she, she's bagging on 50 shades of gray. Oh, okay. I won't say what she said. Okay. Uh, thanks for listening, guys, and thanks for the stuff. Uh, I'll always keep

coming back. That is from Sophia Cook, who read a book about a nook. And all that gobbledy cook. Thanks a lot, Sophia. So her, Dr. Seuss to her is like the way I was raised with Chevy Chase. I guess so. Who just made another appearance in this episode? I know it. Uh, well, if you want to get in touch with us to let us know about someone you were raised to dislike strongly by your parents, we don't use the H word here. No, you can, uh, visit stuff you should know.com. Check out our social links on that site. You can check me out at the joshclarkway.com and you can send Chuck, Jerry and me an email to stuffpodcast.howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, Hey dude, the nineties called David

Lacher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the nineties. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey dude, the nineties called on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new I heart podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush

boy band or each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to frosted tips with Lance Bass on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.