Did you know unbuckled seatbelts are supposed to disable or reduce the action of airbags? Because if you crash hard enough to trigger the airbags, the lack of a seatbelt may make impact with the airbag WORSE than impact with the steering wheel. This is quite the killer device.
I haven’t checked the validity of your statement, but I’d guess this is because airbags are calibrated to go off with the assumption that the occupant is wearing a seatbelt. Airbags should only activate if a collision is hard enough that a person wearing a seatbelt is likely to impact the inside of the car. Without a seatbelt you will not only injure yourself bouncing around the car on a much lower collision speed, but also likely not be in a position the airbag expects you to be when it activates.
This is not my field, so this information comes from articles I’ve read over the years: when they first introduced this functionality, it was explained plainly as: your kinetic energy + the kinetic energy of the expanding airbag > your kinetic energy + negative energy absorbed by the deflating airbag.
Nowadays I gather that things are more complicated, but still, the status of your seatbelt is part of the data your car uses to choose a protection strategy for you. Fooling it with devices like this goes against your own interest twice.
Did you know unbuckled seatbelts are supposed to disable or reduce the action of airbags? Because if you crash hard enough to trigger the airbags, the lack of a seatbelt may make impact with the airbag WORSE than impact with the steering wheel. This is quite the killer device.
I haven’t checked the validity of your statement, but I’d guess this is because airbags are calibrated to go off with the assumption that the occupant is wearing a seatbelt. Airbags should only activate if a collision is hard enough that a person wearing a seatbelt is likely to impact the inside of the car. Without a seatbelt you will not only injure yourself bouncing around the car on a much lower collision speed, but also likely not be in a position the airbag expects you to be when it activates.
This is not my field, so this information comes from articles I’ve read over the years: when they first introduced this functionality, it was explained plainly as: your kinetic energy + the kinetic energy of the expanding airbag > your kinetic energy + negative energy absorbed by the deflating airbag.
Nowadays I gather that things are more complicated, but still, the status of your seatbelt is part of the data your car uses to choose a protection strategy for you. Fooling it with devices like this goes against your own interest twice.