Car Safety Features: Newtons Laws in Airbags

        Inertia is Newton’s first law. It describes that an object with no net force will not change motion, so a still object with a net force of zero will remain motionless and an object moving at a constant velocity will not accelerate. In the case of a car crash, that means that while the car is acted on by the force of impact, the person does not immediately feel that same force, but instead they keep moving in the same direction as they were going before with the same force. This means that they will collide with some part of the car as the car has had a change in directional velocity. The airbags make the impact less fatal by absorbing some of the force carried by the person. The instruments on a car can calculate a person’s force based on how fast the car was going and use that to quickly fine tune the deployment of the airbag.

        In modern cars there are even sensors in the seats to tell if someone is sitting there and how much they weigh. A car can use their weight with the speed of the car and Newton’s second law to more finely tune the airbag. Because F=ma, the approximate force of the person’s velocity towards the airbag can be calculated, and that is used to decide how powerfully the airbag needs to inflate.

        Airbags have to deploy quickly in order to protect people in cars, so they carry a lot of force. Newton’s third law, the action-reaction law, regulates that the person hitting the airbag will receive a force equal and opposite to the force they apply on the airbag. That means there will be forces building up from the person and the inflating airbag. To limit the overall force that the person will receive, airbags are equipped with vents to allow air to exit as is necessary to absorb force. Newer airbags have vents that can be controlled by the car’s computer to account for exactly how fast or slow the car is moving at the time of impact.

These three fundamental laws of motion justify why airbags are necessary in cars. It is ethically expected that cars will be safe when people drive them. Car companies can also sell their cars better for a higher economic product when they are equipped with the most modern of car safety features. This need and expectation for car safety lead to inventions like airbags, car seat belts, and car designs to minimize force and damage in a car. Advancements in car safety features started new laws that facilitated the use of safety features like seat belts and set regulations for other features like airbags. Some advancements also impacted the social and ethical norms. For example, it is now considered wrong for someone to not wear a seatbelt and it is also illegal. Ultimately advances in car safety features have helped everybody and made the world a safer place.