Car Safety

One of the most important aspects more and more automotive manufacturers have been focusing on lately is car safety. The concern is regarding the insertion of more and more systems which will make your car safer and easily to handle in extreme situations. The number of airbags has been increased to protect all the car's passengers and electronic systems, such as anti-lock brakes and stability control, have begun to become widely spread. At first, such systems were introduced on high-end models and in time they were implemented on mainstream models.

When we talk about car safety, we refer to two types of security: passive and active.
The systems which concern the active security of a car are those devices which actively intervene in order to prevent any threat. The anti-lock brakes, the electronic stability and traction control systems are all included in this category and they activate prior to an accident.
If accident has occurred, it is the purpose of the passive security elements to protect the passengers. The special-designed crumple zones, the seatbelts and the airbags are the elements belonging to the passive safety of a vehicle.

The passive safety features work together to protect your life. They are designed from start to work together and if not so, their efficiency has to suffer. For example, an airbag inflated immediately after an accident can cause more harm than good if that person did not wear a seatbelt. The seatbelts are the oldest passive security features included in cars and they also have evolved greatly in time.
One of the most important safety elements is the car's structure and design. Manufacturers use high-strength steel elements which will reduce the chance that the passengers will be injured by different objects intruding the passenger safety cell.
Today's car structures are well studied in test laboratories and they are designed to distribute the immense energies resulting from an accident around the passenger compartment. This cell must remain intact no matter what and it is made from special types of very resistant steel.

The airbags are another important safety feature. Although they are designed to save your life in case of an accident, there have been witnessed cases in which, due to an incorrect position in the car when the accident occurred, they did more harm than good. Such examples are not wearing a seatbelt or situating yourself very close to the dashboard or steering wheel (the minimum distance from the steering wheel should be at least 10 or 12 inches). New airbag designs can deploy in two stages, accordingly to the severity of the crash. Because of their great benefit to car safety, airbag presence in a new car is mandatory in the US, in Canada and in Europe.

The airbag is a special bag made from a thin fabric. It is situated inside the steering wheel, in the passenger's dashboard and other places in the car. Its deployment is controlled by a computer, based on the information received from sensors situated in front of the car. When the energy level inflicted by a crash reaches a certain measurement point, the computer will deploy the bags. Hot nitrogen is used to inflate the bag, and it expands very fast, preventing your head and chest from touching powerfully the interior's hard materials. After expanding from the steering wheel, the gas escapes, allowing you to get out of the vehicle after the crash.

Source: http://www.postarticles.com/Article/Car-Safety/98726