Unfortunately I totalled my gladiator, can't believe airbags didn't go off

[ShadowsPapa]

I don’t swerve for a deer, I’d rather kill the deer than kill myself.

Iowa DNR has done a lot of investigating (deer are a huge issue here on almost all roads, interstates often have very tall fences and our deer are big deer)
What they found is that in almost every case, the damage and injuries were worse if you try to avoid the deer.
Iowa DNR says - don't even try - take what comes.
They had quite an article about it a while back.

Anyway, another example of how a Jeep sacrifices itself to save occupants. Thankfully no human injuries or fatalities! The deer, meh, we could use the herd thinned out a bit. When you are sitting eating breakfast day after day watching the deer in your back yard, 3, 4 or 5 or more at a time, and bucks chasing each other for the rights to the doe........ I think there are plenty of them.
I could sit in my own house, open a window and nail at least 2 or 3 every week. I had to keep shooting them with a pellet gun to keep them away from the apple tree through late summer and early fall. then a few hours later, there they were again.

These have side air bags in the roll cage to prevent head injury in even of a rollover - so you won't have the same side curtain air bags at rib level we often think of.
I believe the full side curtain air bags are a 2024 model year thing. So we don't have the side air bags like you'd normally think of. Just for roll-over protection for the head.

Glad you guys are ok. Looks like it hit between the 2 sensors in the front.

"crush cans" not sensors. Sensors are frame mounted, etc. Those cans actually are there to absorb energy from low impact hits and prevent the air bag from going off from low speed boo-boos.

Your hit was right in between both of the front bag sensors......YES a poor design

Those aren't sensors.
There's a long thread on that very thing here a couple of years ago. Those prevent the air bag from being deployed as they absorb a low impact jolt where air bags aren't needed. There's no sensor there. The sensor is farther back, not in the bumper area.
The fact those crush cans didn't take and absorb any impact makes it even more amazing airbags didn't go off. If you take a hit on those they are supposed to slow the abrupt stop - they take the first of the energy so it's not a huge jolt from a 5 mph impact. Without those if you rear end someone at low speed the air bags are more likely to go off because the energy is imparted directly to the frame where the sensor is farther back.

Sensors require wires - there's no wiring there. That's all much farther back where the "jolt" to the frame would be measured.

And these don't have side air bags like people think of - only to protect the head from the roll cage in event of a roll-over accident so there's no side air bags to go off! Not until 2024.

Sponsored

 

[dayusmc]

I wasn't going fast at all. I was taken by surprise because the deer came up from behind me (I was stoped at a stop sign and making a left turn) as I started to go, the deer ran into my front left, my natural reaction was to swirve right, the deer after hitting me ran off - Hit & Run Deer! Next time I am just going to keep going and run the dam deer over!

 

[Chaos Theory]

Correct, as Hootbro said above, airbag deployment is not only detecting "crumple zones" but also inertia. In this case the deer didn't create enough of a stopping force to tell the airbags to deploy. Airbags are potentially dangerous when not needed. It's basically a controlled explosion pointed directly at your face. The airbag system did exactly what it was designed to do, here.

I've handled probably a thousand car vs deer crashes in my life, there is nothing unusual with what happened, based on the pics. Glad you're ok!

 

[punk'n]

If you ran into a pool filled with water, that may have acted as your airbag to some extent.

Air bags will only deploy after the sensors sense an incident and a predetermined algorithm is met within the airbag control module (different manufacturers have different names). Typically, they will deploy if they meet a threshold equivalent to a head on wall impact at a certain speed. This is also dependent on if a seat belt is being worn and seating position.

Being that you struck a pool, it may have allowed the collision to take longer, thereby allowing the water to absorb the impact and allow the crash to take longer. The longer a crash takes typically is better. Short timed crashes (think head on into a wall) are bad for the human body.

 

[chorky]

Man that really sucks... Glad nobody is hurt. Sucks for the deer too. At least you dont have a whole bunch of aftermarket stuff that needs to be taken off though.

 

[dayusmc]

I was surprised there is so much damage to my Gladiator from such a small accident. Frame Motor and possibly brakes or tranny. But I guess it is designed to self sacrifice to protect the passengers, and I am fine with that!

 

[Koolcarguy]

Iowa DNR has done a lot of investigating (deer are a huge issue here on almost all roads, interstates often have very tall fences and our deer are big deer)
What they found is that in almost every case, the damage and injuries were worse if you try to avoid the deer.
Iowa DNR says - don't even try - take what comes.
They had quite an article about it a while back.

Anyway, another example of how a Jeep sacrifices itself to save occupants. Thankfully no human injuries or fatalities! The deer, meh, we could use the herd thinned out a bit. When you are sitting eating breakfast day after day watching the deer in your back yard, 3, 4 or 5 or more at a time, and bucks chasing each other for the rights to the doe........ I think there are plenty of them.
I could sit in my own house, open a window and nail at least 2 or 3 every week. I had to keep shooting them with a pellet gun to keep them away from the apple tree through late summer and early fall. then a few hours later, there they were again.

These have side air bags in the roll cage to prevent head injury in even of a rollover - so you won't have the same side curtain air bags at rib level we often think of.
I believe the full side curtain air bags are a 2024 model year thing. So we don't have the side air bags like you'd normally think of. Just for roll-over protection for the head.


"crush cans" not sensors. Sensors are frame mounted, etc. Those cans actually are there to absorb energy from low impact hits and prevent the air bag from going off from low speed boo-boos.



Those aren't sensors.
There's a long thread on that very thing here a couple of years ago. Those prevent the air bag from being deployed as they absorb a low impact jolt where air bags aren't needed. There's no sensor there. The sensor is farther back, not in the bumper area.
The fact those crush cans didn't take and absorb any impact makes it even more amazing airbags didn't go off. If you take a hit on those they are supposed to slow the abrupt stop - they take the first of the energy so it's not a huge jolt from a 5 mph impact. Without those if you rear end someone at low speed the air bags are more likely to go off because the energy is imparted directly to the frame where the sensor is farther back.

Sensors require wires - there's no wiring there. That's all much farther back where the "jolt" to the frame would be measured.

And these don't have side air bags like people think of - only to protect the head from the roll cage in event of a roll-over accident so there's no side air bags to go off! Not until 2024.

I was referring to the sensors that are mounted on the frame rails in the front if the "crush can" are crushed the next inline is the sensors that are miunted on front frame rails ....

 

[dayusmc]

The stereo is going to be the hardest to take out. We literally wired it in like factory, factory taped everything!

 

[Dougstdig]

Different kind of wreck, but my TJ bags didn’t go off either. Jeep sent engineers to inspect.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I was referring to the sensors that are mounted on the frame rails in the front if the "crush can" are crushed the next inline is the sensors that are miunted on front frame rails ....

What sensors?
Mine has nothing going back several inches.
I've had the front end of mine apart multiple times and there's no sensors in the front ends of the frame.
there's nothing in back of the crush cans
I've probed back into the frame to install my snow plow mounting bar brackets as well as mounting 2 front receivers between the frame rails - nothing back there.
Anything on the frame would have to be back at least as far as the AC condenser, behind the grill area as my receiver mounts between the frame rails back that far
The plow brackets mount on the outside of the frame rails back a ways.

There's nothing even close to those crush cans, nor does there even need to be. Anything back behind the grill area would suffice.

 

[Sprinkler-Fitter]

Iowa DNR has done a lot of investigating (deer are a huge issue here on almost all roads, interstates often have very tall fences and our deer are big deer)
What they found is that in almost every case, the damage and injuries were worse if you try to avoid the deer.
Iowa DNR says - don't even try - take what comes.
They had quite an article about it a while back.

Anyway, another example of how a Jeep sacrifices itself to save occupants. Thankfully no human injuries or fatalities! The deer, meh, we could use the herd thinned out a bit. When you are sitting eating breakfast day after day watching the deer in your back yard, 3, 4 or 5 or more at a time, and bucks chasing each other for the rights to the doe........ I think there are plenty of them.
I could sit in my own house, open a window and nail at least 2 or 3 every week. I had to keep shooting them with a pellet gun to keep them away from the apple tree through late summer and early fall. then a few hours later, there they were again.

These have side air bags in the roll cage to prevent head injury in even of a rollover - so you won't have the same side curtain air bags at rib level we often think of.
I believe the full side curtain air bags are a 2024 model year thing. So we don't have the side air bags like you'd normally think of. Just for roll-over protection for the head.


"crush cans" not sensors. Sensors are frame mounted, etc. Those cans actually are there to absorb energy from low impact hits and prevent the air bag from going off from low speed boo-boos.



Those aren't sensors.
There's a long thread on that very thing here a couple of years ago. Those prevent the air bag from being deployed as they absorb a low impact jolt where air bags aren't needed. There's no sensor there. The sensor is farther back, not in the bumper area.
The fact those crush cans didn't take and absorb any impact makes it even more amazing airbags didn't go off. If you take a hit on those they are supposed to slow the abrupt stop - they take the first of the energy so it's not a huge jolt from a 5 mph impact. Without those if you rear end someone at low speed the air bags are more likely to go off because the energy is imparted directly to the frame where the sensor is farther back.

Sensors require wires - there's no wiring there. That's all much farther back where the "jolt" to the frame would be measured.

And these don't have side air bags like people think of - only to protect the head from the roll cage in event of a roll-over accident so there's no side air bags to go off! Not until 2024.

I was a firefighter for 21 years, I’ve seen car accidents where people died from trying to miss squirrels or dogs or deer or a cow one time, it’s not worth it just hit the damn animal.

 

[punk'n]

The plus side of hitting one is that they make good eating since they are so fresh.

 

[steveorama]

I was t-boned into the front axle in August, no airbag deployment on mine either and I was doing around 50 mph. It was a significant impact that resulted in replacement of the front axle and frame. After almost 4 months I just got mine back a week ago. It was over $24k in damage and they still didn’t total mine out.

 

[whiskeyxr]

I have to ask...are you sure the insurance company is going to total that? I know it is damaged but we have seen them fix more than that before. We have also seen the opposite. Guess it would depend on how much they can make on parts. Just want you to be sure of their intent before making a move on your end

 

[Florida Mojave]

Yep, going to remove the Stereo and wheels!
Luckily I found a Mojave the same color for sale in my state. Only thing I don't like about the Mojave is the leather seats.

You should be able to find someone on here to trade you straight up for the seats...might be an option.

Sponsored