Merc Ml Jeep Safety

opel1

My friend had an accident in their 07 Ml jeep. It occurred on a dual carraige way sized road in perth, australia where they live, after coming onto road from the slip road he was driving behind a car when it suddenly swerved to avoid a truck wheel which was lying in the centre of the lane.
Now my friend was either too close to car in front or going too fast as he did not react in time and ended up hitting it on the corner of the bumperon the drivers side of car damaging/smashing the alloy wheel, some suspension damage and more than likely other parts too!!! Luckily enough he managed to keep control of the jeep and nurse it into the hard shoulder out of harms way.
The reason I post this message is because the jeep hit the truck wheel on the drivers side but the air bags only went off on the passenger side,not one of the airbags on drivers side went off, there was no-one else in the car at the time but it seems odd to me and anyone else i've talked to that no airbags went off on the drivers side at all!!!!!
The reason they bought the ml jeep was because it was regarded as one of the safer jeeps in its class and they wanted something safe with a new baby on the way. Luckily the baby was not in the car as it usually is located on the passenger side in the rear!!!
I was just wondering if anyone has come accross this themselves on the ml jeep or any other cars?

colm_mcm

the airbags are designed to protect the occupents based on information sent by sensors. all airbags will not deploy in every case, just the ones required.
I'm presuming everyone involved escaped without injury.

Last year, some friends of mine were driving an ML63 AMG, and were forced off the road at very high speed, everyone got out uninjured. these cars have to undergo huge testing and development to make it to production. I'd be very surprsed if there is anything to worry about.

robbie99

Check out this thread where there's a lot of discussion about why airbags may fail to deploy...
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055406861

Del2005

robbie99 wrote: »

Check out this thread where there's a lot of discussion about why airbags may fail to deploy...
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055406861

Was only thinking about that one recently. I love the "I crashed my car and walked away unharmed, why didn't my car work" threads.

Some people must love spending money they don't need to by looking for the airbag to go off and then getting the shock of how much they cost to replace.

robbie99

I would actually question why the passenger airbag went off rather than why the driver's one didn't. Had the driver's airbag gone off he wouldn't have been able to control the jeep and nurse it to the hard shoulder with possibly broken wrists, let alone see where he was going after being punched in the face by the airbag!

I know that BMW had two recent recalls in relation to airbag deployment and I'm sure many other manufacturers have similar recalls

http://www.vosa.gov.uk/vosa/apps/recalls/searches/expand.asp?uniqueID=C2ED71E6C82B5F33802573EE002ED4B0&freeText=Blank&tx=

http://www.vosa.gov.uk/vosa/apps/recalls/searches/expand.asp?uniqueID=C2ED71E6C82B5F33802573EE002ED4B0&freeText=Blank&tx=

Maybe there's a bug in the Mercedes system causing the passenger airbag to fire. I'd let Mercedes investigate this.

cabrwab

Normally an air bag will deploy if it senses somebody sitting on the seat, did they have anything like a bag on the passenger seat?
What about the child seat was it in the rear of the car minus child?

The driver should be happy their bag didn't deploy as previous poster said.

Curtain airbags are also there to prevent glass flying over the cabin, so maybe that deployed as the car sensed a side impact.
Either way merc would be able to tell him properly with a reading.

Glad everyone is ok and got to walk away. Cars are replaceable!

opel1

colm_mcm wrote: »

the airbags are designed to protect the occupents based on information sent by sensors. all airbags will not deploy in every case, just the ones required.
I'm presuming everyone involved escaped without injury.

Last year, some friends of mine were driving an ML63 AMG, and were forced off the road at very high speed, everyone got out uninjured. these cars have to undergo huge testing and development to make it to production. I'd be very surprsed if there is anything to worry about.

No injuries thankfully, my post more enquiring as to why if the car took an impact on drivers side, did the airbags on that side not go off?? Only person in car was the driver, not 100% sure if any bags or similar were on any other seats hence activating sensors.
Granted, if steering wheel air bag had gone off situation could have been worse off! Will have to wait and see if any explanation/reasons come after assessors have a look.