Hi All

My wife was stopped on the freeway in trafic in front of a pickup truck when a chevrolet prism rear ended her going approx. 55 mph. She was then push into the pickup truck in front of her and the pickup truck into a truck in front of him. There is 31k damage to my car mostly in front, the car was totalled. When I saw the car and saw that the airbags didnt deploy I was very upset. After taking my wife to the doctor I called BMW and told them what happen. They sent a Engineer out to look at the car and take pictures. The car has frame damage but BMW said it was'nt severe enough for the Air bags to deploy. I'm not an engineer but I went and took pictures and even the support that holds the air bag sensors is bent. My question is HAS ANY BODY ELSE EXPERIENCED THIS??? Please get back to me. Thanks for Help!!

 

I am not an accident engineer, but from how you described the accident, I'm not surprised the airbags didn't go off based on my understanding, as I believe they are designed to deploy in response to g-forces, mostly from frontal and side/offset collisions. In a collision from the rear, I wouldn't think they'd even help, as you're being propelled backward, essentially, into the seatback. I'd bet that a lot of the frontal damage is from mis-aligned bumper height on the pickup rather than g-forces, but this is total speculation.

 

if the front end is total the front airbags should come out for the driver side.
any photos?

 

wow thats crazy, thankfully your wife is ok and nothing serious to her health? I read an article on the E60's that had problems with airbag deployment, depending on the year of your car. here is the link
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26179745/

Hope it helps , also i found a thread on this in the forums that have the same link i jut posted

http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=59936

Good Luck, Hope your wife is better and hopefully insurance will fix or replace your E60!

 

Steve, what year and model is your E60?

 

sorry to hear about that man hope your wife is ok.

 

Have the airbag problem assessed/checked by a third party safety expert (refer to lawyer for this) as this might be grounds of a lawsuit against BMW. If this happened to me, I would be very upset and would definitely have BMW be responsible for this seeing that my wife's safety could have been seriously compromised!

 

I am not surprised at all.

I pick up totalled cars without airbags deployed everytime I drive the tow truck.



They don't deploy on a certain speed, the deploy on certain impact forces measured at the crash sensors.
Your car was pushed into the car in front which was also pushed into another car.
So, a lot of the forces/impact energy was gone.
If the car in front of yours would've been standing still with his brakes on, the impact of your car being pushed into him would've been much heavier and the airbags would've been deployed.

I have seen it all on the roads...

Cars having impacts with just 20 mph, all airbags deployed.
Cars that crashed on the highway at 100 mph, no airbags deployed.

Just by hearing how the crash happened I'd say the airbags shouldn't deploy.
I hope your wife is OK, and since the forces were not enough for the airbags I think she is...

 

Hope your wife is doing well.

 

My wife was rear ended in the E39 on the day I drove the E60 home from the dealer (1.5 weeks ago). This was a three car pile up similar to what you describe. The car that made the initial impact had the airbags go off, the middle car did not and my wife's car did not. My family and I were in a similar pile up in my Dads Chrysler 300C and we were at the front again, this time of a 5 car pile up. The first two had airbad deployment the rest not.

If she walked away I would say the car did it's job. If the airbag went off she may have been hurt from it.

Michael