Ford's inflatable seat belts headed to Explorer in 2010, other whips in due time (video)
By Darren Murph 
posted November 7th 2009 6:33AM
posted November 7th 2009 6:33AM
posted November 7th 2009 6:33AM
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Whips?
Yes, as in:
Put it down hard for my dogs that's locked in the bang
When you hit the bricks, new WHIPS, money ain't a thang,
You kids these days with your Kanye West and your "I'mma let you finish" memes. Sheesh.
I don't get it either. Even after the explanation. I'm officially old.
Through deductive reasoning and other means of cleverness, I've boiled that down to:
whips = cars
I'm going to boil it down further
Rap = stupid.
rapc?
Even rappers don't say whips anymore.
Rap is the only word in the dictionary with a silent 'c'.
Many words are spelled with a silent c following s: for example abscess, descend (with descent); omniscient; words ending in -esce, -escent, or -escence, such as acquiesce, effervescent, convalescent. A silent c may also occur before k or q: examples include acknowledge; acquainted; acquire.
http://www.askoxford.com/betterwriting/classicerrors/spellingtips/silentletters
Joke
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Mjay's head.
yup, there's that word again. whenever one of these ubernerds uses "whips" instead of just "car" it makes me do a captain picard facepalm. it's as cringe-worthy as josh topolsky recording video of himself on his droidnerd phone, using the words "jiggy", "bling" or "zizzle".
You can't have pie without cool Hwip.
@Matt
I know the joke was over Mjay's head, but I laughed at least three times as hard at his response than I did at the joke to begin with. It was really pretty classic.
That is cool.
Not only cool but basically it prevents the body from having being restrained from a thin piece of material going from 60to 0 in a few meters.. ouch!
At least the pressure will be dispered over your body that localized inone small strap...
Then again you could allways use racing harnesses...
Than again in a 60 to 0 accident having a seat belt welt on your chest is the least of your worries...
Then again driving in a Ford SUV is asking for random rollovers...
Then again Ford actually made $$$ so props to them.
Definitely! Cool idea. At first I thought they were inflated at all times but an airbag seatbelt thing to disperse pressure is a very nice idea.
Volvo's idea that never happend.
Actually Ford owns Volvo now. So it did happen. :)
No, I know it Ford owns Volvo.. but PROBABLY a Ford Executive heard a Volvo executive "INFLATABLE SEATBELTS SUCK" then that Ford executive gave that idea to the Ford CEO and then.. BOOM! Money.
It's so simple I can't believe anyone has ever thought about it before.
Huh the comment above just pumelled mine into the depths of ignorance.
I am waiting for the Demolition Man movie car. That car would shoot shock absorbing foam throughout the entire interior of the car.
that's what I was thinking.
Now they just have to get past the suffocating-in-a-3-foot-thick-foam-cocoon-until-rescue-arrives problem
I don't get it, it blows up the seatbelt, but why? You already have a seatbelt, what is it protecting really? Something you have on your lap? A tuba? The neck argument seems silly, they could just as easily say 'it forces your head sideways ensuring injuries and whiplash of types that were not available before'
And talking of holdings things, what if you have something in your hands and don't sit like a testdummy, like kids often will, will it be worse? I think there's a real risk it will make things worse in real life scenarios.
Do you really need someone to explain how this would help?
The purpose is to help cushion the impact of the seat belt on your chest. Also to spread out the force across your body helping reduce the chance of a major or even fatal injury.
No the 'baloon' is on the front of the actual belt, the belt still has the same action on the body, the only suggested effect is to reduce your head slamming forwards against your body.
So yes I do need a credible reason for this.
Although I do admit the belt gets a little wider, which isn't necessarily good under all circumstance either of course, but in most cases it should help a little.
Here's something to think about, with each deployment, regatdless if it helps, ford makes a lot of money since you need a replacement belt and inflator, how convenient in a time when carcompanies need cash.
IF you are in a 60 to 0 crash, I don't think you'll be worried about the cost of a seatbelt, let alone likely even driving that vehicle again. If you don't believe it, watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5vbNbxD6bw
If only for entertainment purposes :)
It helps because it helps sell cars, and increase maintenance. So lets say an airbag costs $1500 to replace. If a car has 2 airbags that is an instant $3000 added to the repair bill in even low impact collisions. I am sure seatbelt airbags will have to be cheaper to replace, so lets say $500. Now lets say the car has 2 front airbags, 2 headrest airbags for the rear passengers, 4 side curtain airbags, and 5 seatbelt airbags. A small low damage collision could potentially cost $12,500 in airbag replacement fees alone. So if your car is worth less than $15,000 A fender bender could in all likelihood total it. It is like cash for clunkers all over again, only instead of tax dollars scrapping and replacing decent cars, we have our insurance premiums replacing perfectly decent cars. It is a total win for the car company. They sell more cars because they are viewed as safer, and they sell more cars because they are being totalled.
I just wonder when it will get to a point that insurance premiums will actually go up based on the number of airbags in your car.
But then again I am totally cynical about car companies interests when it comes to safety equipment. If anybody remembers the fiasco of door mounted seatbelts in the 80s that is what really killed it for me. Airbags were new and legislation was introduced that was going to require them in all cars. The lobbyists got to it, and got it changed to "passive restraint systems" in other words something that didn't require user intervention to engage like a seatbelt. So that intentionally created a loophole that made mounting seatbelts on the door a legal work-around to installing airbags. If you read the manuals on cars with these, they instructed you to leave the belt fastened at all times and to slide in underneath them when you opened the door. It was lame and nobody used them that way, and the car companies knew they wouldn't. The kicker was that it made the cars actually much less safe. I personally know a man who's wife was thrown from a car and died even while wearing a seatbelt.because the door opened during the accident. He won a hefty 7 figures in the lawsuit against GM and car companies have now realized airbags are cheaper than lawsuits, but they still aren't introducing this stuff because they care about safety. It is all about selling cars.
@potterist
Actually you probably wouldn't be worried about anything at all since most high speed head on collisions are fatal. Seriously if a car has veered off course and is about to collide head on it's actually better to crash your car into almost anything else, drive it off road at high speed, or swerving right in front of another vehicle (suppose if it's an 18-wheeler you might be screwed either way) but almost all options are better than a head on collision at speed.
@ RandomGuy
When will it go up based on the number of airbags in your car? It won't and I will tell you why. The price of an airbag or a seat belt is negligible compared to the price of a hospital stay and taking out your spleen, or having a pin put in, or wiring your jaw shut. Safety features will always decrease your insurance because of this and because of the insane rates charged by the medical industry.
I approve!
Awesome. So now when you get into a fender-bender you not only have to order a new set of $1500 airbags from Ford, you have to buy $900 seat belts as well.
If the back seat is empty and the seats aren't buckled, it costs you nothing. If the back seat happens to have your beautiful children under the age of ten they may be substantially less injured in the event of a major collision. I may be a cheap-assed bastard, but some things are worth $3300.
Life saved > Any amount of money
Blessed are the naive and easy to influence - Alan R. Mulally
Amazing. Now we need safety devices to protect us from safety devices.
Bingo.
F150 Pickups will have belts that turn into inflatable sex sheep!
Great something else on the Ford ExploDer is going to exlode.
Reportedly, the Lexus LFA isn't going to start being made until late 2010 and delivered to customers in 2011, so I think the Ford will reach the market with this "first."
I don't know. Airbags are nice. Front airbags. Side airbags. Backseat front airbags... But seat belt airbags? In a world where airbags go off far to often (and sometimes cause far more damage then if they had not gone off) this seems like a expense where I would much rather take the bruising.
I mean seat belts that are worn correctly work. This just seems to have far to much potential for going off when it doesn't need to, causing bruises, and never getting replaced for the next accident where it could be useful.
Of course if I had kids, and could have them only in the backseat I might reconsider.
"In a world where airbags go off far to often" [citation needed]
This would probably be a factor if I were in the market for an SUV, and had small kiddos in the backseat. This is a good move by Ford. Surprised that Volvo didn't beat them to the market with this technology. Volvo (IMO) has had safety at the forefront of their products above others.
This seams like a pretty dumb idea to me. Rather than waste all that money on inflatable seatbelts that are often not worn at all, why not just install airbags behing the drivers and passenger front seats that would deploy even if the rear seat occupants didn't have their belts on. The tech is already developed and it wouldn't rely on the use of seatbelts so much. BTW, rear seat passengers are already 3 times safer in back than in front and regular seatbelts work very well back there.
Think about this, if it's such a great idea, why don't they put them on the front seat belts?
Because airbags, even low-speed airbags, kill children, which is why you have to be a certain height or weight to sit in the front seat. Additionally, since the car makers can't reasonably calculate the distance between the rear of the front passenger/front driver seat and the person in the back due to factors such as the size, age and weight of the child and the position of the seat chosen by the user, it'd be extremely difficult to design a bag that was safe for all children of all sizes who are placed in the back seat. The reason why they don't install seat belt airbags in the front seat is because there are already airbags in the dashboard and the steering column, making the seat-belt airbags superfluous.
How about they invent something that punches the occupants in the face until they put their seatbelts on. I don't understand how people still refuse to wear them. Also, airbags are worse if people aren't wearing the seatbelt, they're designed to work together.
I cant believe it , US car makers are on the edge of extintion,and continue to make gadgets
instead of fine cars, check the number of fatal accidents in europe and USA on a per capita
basis.
Youll see that fine cars reduce accidents
That's funny, considering Ford posted a billion dollar profit in Q3 this year. Don't let logic get in the way of your blind prejudice, though.
Ford has come a LONG way in quality and desirability in its cars and trucks. Haters gon' hate, though, I guess.
Are you really that dumb? If you're going to make statements along those lines how about you read a little first. Like the other poster said, Ford posted a 1 BILLION dollar profit, and that's without ever taking any bailout money from the government. They've done this by building terrific cars with innovative technologies like this and SYNC.