My 70 year old friend doesn't weigh enough to trigger the Air Bag On light. What is the weight minimum? And is there some better solution than pushing her seat all the way back or having her sit in the back seat?
I wonder if there is a problem with the sensor. I have had a moderately heavy tote bag set off the seatbelt warning. Maybe a trip to your dealer could solve the problem?
^ Concur. Have the sensor looked at....or look at it yourself. In Goofy, I have to keep the co-pilot seatbelt buckled regardless of whether or not there's actually a bean in the seat since my flight bag weighs something like 20-30# (depending on the night's mission) and I always used to get fussed at by the electronic Nanny for not having my flight bag buckled in. I wound up just buckling nothing into the front seat. So......you have a for-real passenger that's not activating the co-pilot sensor????? I'd have that looked at immediately....especially if you do not dislike the person that you're giving rides to. It's not nuclear physics. Usually it's something like an envelope-tubing-switch kind of thing, and sometimes Mr. Tubing gets yanked out of place by people stashing (cramming) stuff under the front right seat. Not that I would know anything about stuff like that.....since......I have a permit... Anyway.....I'd get it looked at. Soon.
I've heard of it happening in my mom's 07 Altima Hybrid w/some of my fairly light adult relatives. I've personally seen it happen in my 06 Prius, again w/one of the fairly light adult relatives on that side of the family. I think the algorithm may depend on the car and could depend on more than weight and could "misclassify" or correctly (?) classify some adults to have the front passenger airbag off. Here are some hits that I found: When Occupant Sensors Don't Make Sense? | IIHS-HLDI http://www.safercar.gov/Vehicle+Shoppers/Air+Bags/Advanced+Frontal+Air+Bags#6 HowStuffWorks "OCS Sensors" If someone has some good definitive info, I'd love to see it.
I would worry the air bag could hurt someone that small. She may be safer with just a seatbelt and no airbag.
I have two small dogs that when both in the front seat will trigger the light. 45 pounds is what they weigh together. Seperately they will not cause the light to come on.
A child is <36 kg/79 lb, an adult is anything more than that. Keep in mind, that's the weight on the seat - some of her weight is on her feet when sitting normally. There's a second adult classification for >54 kg/119 lb; I'm assuming that's just used as input to the airbag deployment to tell it to inflate more. Assuming that she's fairly light, I wouldn't worry about it too much. You might check that there's nothing caught under the seat that's propping it up. The manual also suggests making sure that the seat is upright, and not leaning against the back seat. I agree with adamace1; airbags are not designed to protect children and small adults; I believe they are tested for the 5th percentile adult female, 50th percentile adult male, and 95th percentile adult male. If she is outside that range, the car is probably correct to disable the airbags. Many fatalities that are caused by airbags have been of children, because they deploy with too much force, and because children are more likely to wear the seatbelt incorrectly (because it's not designed for them either). In the last 8 years or so, these fatalities have basically dropped to zero due to improved airbag system design, including disabling the airbag when appropriate.
My wife is about 88 lbs. The airbag light goes on and off depending on how much weight she is applying to the seat. When she sits in it upright, it usually does not come on. If she sits in it yoga style (legs both crossed in the chair) it comes on. So she seems to be right at that gap between what is recognized as a child and an adult. A few years ago, car manufacturers would put in a switch to over-ride the sensor and turn it off. I understand a lot of studies have been done which is why they no longer do that and now do it by weight. That being said, it is annoying to see the light go back and forth. I would like to just disable the light altogether (without pulling the builb). The electronic nanny can still do what it wants, just stop telling us about it. - TP
This is straying off topic and I'll probably get yelled at, but what the heck. Wouldn't putting the bag on the floor serve to not have the car yell at you for not buckling in? Lol. Or is the bag too large to fit on the floor? And you're a pilot? that's pretty cool... now I'm curious what you mean by mission... hmmmm
^^^^ I don't generally yell @ people. Life is too short for that. Some folks are just a little challenged in the old humor department. Others are just control freaks. Within limits? Posting should be free as air. Er...(*!*) well.....most air. I will sometimes take a friendly poke at the mods for being about as fair and balanced as Fox News however (comma!!) they do a remarkable job of making sure that folks in this forum color inside the lines. So.... Answers: 1. No 2. Yes 3. No. I do have some stick time in, but I'm not your typical Prius driver. I'm solidly middle class and thus cannot afford to keep current with a Pilot's License. I was taking literary license, which someone with even my modest means can afford to keep current. 4. The mission depends on what's broken or what needs to be provisioned and/or installed, and in what office or PoP. Sometimes? I only need three of my fingers (for tapping on a keyboard/pad.) Other times I'm slinging fiber, flopping packs or just fixing Aunt Lucy's POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service.) I also sweep out the place and empty the occasional trash can. Mostly I put my flight bag on the co-pilot's seat and place plugs, tools, fiber, wire, test sets, stuff, crap, things on the back seat and in the cargo bay. Being a five-door car, the G3 is pretty adaptable as a work vehicle, and I've only had to leave it parked about a dozen times in two years because it couldn't hack weather, route, or load. As stated above, the weight of the flight bag is variable, but it almost never weighs as much as a seventy-year-old human being ought to. If somebody sits in a front seat and they don't enable the air bag? There's a PROBLEM. They either (A) do not belong in that seat due to age, weight or some other factor or......(B) the seat is inoperable (see also: A) Simple. Flight Bags? They don't count...
