An eight-year-old child was killed by an inflating front passenger airbag in Sungai Petani, Malaysia yesterday, as reported by Berita Harian.
The girl was reportedly resting her face on the dashboard when the vehicle she was in, driven by her 17-year-old brother, hit a speed bump severely enough to trigger the front airbags to deploy. The inflating airbag threw her to the back of the car, and she was pronounced dead by the time she arrived at the hospital.
Tragic news indeed.
Now parents, please take note of this incident and keep your children secured properly in your vehicles. Under no condition should a child ever be left unsecured in a moving vehicle.
Kids who weigh under 25 kg (weight is a more accurate measure than age) must be placed in a child seat (Group 0+, 1 and 2), and those under 36 kg should be secured with seat belts, together with either a booster seat or booster cushion (Group 3). These are absolute necessities, not optional.
More than that, it’s absolutely vital that they be seated in the back, and not at the front. This is to position your kids away from the front airbags in case an accident happens. You should only ever place a child seat or booster seat in the front if your car has a front passenger airbag off switch (not many cars do) – and even then, only as a last resort.
The two videos embedded here show very clearly why children, whether properly fastened or not, should not be placed in the front seat when the front passenger airbag is activated.
An airbag deploys extremely rapidly, using controlled explosives, inflicting considerable impact on the front passenger if he or she is not secured properly. This can be dangerous to adults who are unfastened, let alone small children, who can be flung backwards violently by an inflating airbag.
Parents, readers, please share this to avoid such horrific tragedies from happening again.
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Some stupid car like Toyota’s, no front passenger sensor to activate/ deactivate the front airbag.
Why we need to deactive front airbag, might as well buy zero airbag car.
This article is to ask you wear your seatbelt.
Hi, in cases where you’re forced to place a child seat in the front seat (as a last resort, remember), you have to deactivate the front passenger airbag, as mentioned in the article. But yes, not all cars have this feature.
A child with seatbelt, is better.
A child with seatbelt, hitting the airbag and pushed back to sofa, still better than hitting to the hard dashboard.
u try put your face and let airbag deploy see you die or not.
mind if your team can list down cars under 100K that have airbag disable function?
Preve
You spend RM100k only looking for front airbag disabling button?
That’s why Preve/Suprima S sales so bad.
Preve & suprima
Polo, kia cerato,etc
You need to deactive your front passenger (not driver) airbag when you put a babysit with baby in front passenger seat. If not the airbag if triggered might push the baby sit to seat which result the baby suffocated.
All got to do with the duit kopi officers. Offenders will be offenders. The authorites must uphold the law.
the problem in Malaysia, 90% of JPJ, DBKL, PDRM, SPAD officers all take duit kopi when the offenders are caught.
These officers are lazy. Just want free money to go to KFC or to take their many wives out to KFC.
The problem in Malaysia is enforcement. Clean enforcement I mean. PDRM do hundreds of road bloacks, but we all know, it is to get money to go to KFC later. Nothing else.
If they are strict and not take KFC money, accidents like this won’t happen
u are one of the most frustrated person on earth. u should learn how to channel ur anger and not let it out at just anything.
If the corrupted BN not implanted AP system or super high excise duty then most car makers won’t only think of profit more then customers safety !!!
Corruption has nothing to do with this. Stupidity of those kids, just like yours, is.
By eating kfc
Airbag is dangerous! It almost kill my friend when it inflated from a small frontal knock. He couldn’t steer car away from on coming traffic as the car was still in gear.
how ironic to lay blame on the airbag when no one knows if the child was properly belted. however given the malaysian mentality, it is highly unlikely the child was belted.
besides that, for children below 145cm are supposed to be in booster seats, which is unlikely in this case as well.
the failure wasn’t on the airbag but on the parent’s understanding of child safety.
Not all cars can deactivate the front airbag. The BMW F30 does not allow u to deactivate the front airbag! Furthermore if one can put their head at the dashboard it could very well mean the person wasn’t using the safety belt
The sad thing is I still see many drivers on the road driving with his/her child sitting on his/her lap (in between the driver and the steering wheel). He/she may think the child is having fun, but when accident happened…..
If you read the news, it says that the airbag deployed simply because the driver hit a road bump? So what kind of road bump are we talking about here? Our typical housing area road bumps? if yes, then the airbags should NOT deploy. As a concerned consumer, we would like to know what car model is this, and perhaps an official statement from the car manufacturer is needed to clarify. If the airbag has malfunctioned (deployed not during emergency) then a lawsuit must be in place to sue for damages and compensation to the victim. I pity the victims.
DAMN STUPID!!! My area has sooo many road bumps and even humps which are much steeper. Such a hazard to those going through it in the car everyday!!
takata?
put child at the rear seat also dangerous if rear collision happened, especially those hatchback design. safest way is birth control. no child no child casualty.
Takata?