Airbags of Cyrus Mistry's Mercedes-Benz GLC SUV worked; not wearing seat belt cost his life

New Delhi: Enough was said about the airbags not being deployed on the rear seat of Mercedes-Benz GLC causing the death of Cyrus Mistry and his co-passenger sitting on the rear seat. The two people who survived the unfortunate accident on Sunday were sitting in front with seat belts on.

From a layman’s eye, the videography of the damaged car shows cotton airbags deployed on the front seats which are not visible on the rear seats.

Perhaps this is the reason why everyone including media outlets and police stated that the rear airbags did not deploy.

However, if one looks at the same video carefully, there is a green cover visible on the rear windows. That’s the proof that the rear airbags of Mistry’s car deployed as they should have.

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“Whenever a commoner thinks about airbags, she imagines balloon-type airbags popping up from all the sides and protecting the people sitting inside the car. This is a wrong perception. There are two types of airbags. One is with cotton and another is like air balloons. Cotton airbags are fitted in the dashboard of the car whereas the rear airbags pop up from the side and protect the passenger from the outside impact,” an expert working at luxury car maker BMW told NewsDrum.

“All the airbags are deployed within microseconds of the impact with the generation of gas caused by an internal mechanism. However, there is no airbag fitted into the backside of the front seats, irrespective of the cost of the car, which could save the pillion rider from the front impact. This is why, you need to wear seat belts irrespective of where are you seated,” the expert added.

The expert added that the discussion around airbags failing to deploy in Mistry’s car should stop as it has been established from the videography available on the internet. 

“Even as I am from a competing brand, I have no hesitation in saying that Mercedes-Benz GLC is a perfect product from a safety point of view. Rather, the discussion should move towards the necessity of wearing seat belts even when someone is seated on the rear seats,” he said. 

Every seat is fitted with seat belts which are the first line of defence.

Airbags are of no use if the seat belt is not strapped. An airbag is the second line of defence that works only if the first is in place.

According to police, Mistry, who along with his friend Jahangir Pandole were seated in the rear, wasn't wearing a seat belt and must have been thrown in front at great velocity once the speeding car crashed into a divider. Both Mistry and Pandole died in the accident.

Although not wearing a seat belt by passengers sitting in the rear seats attracts a fine of Rs 1,000 under Rule 138 (3) of the Central Motor Vehicle Rules (CMVR), most people are either unaware of this mandatory rule or just ignore them.

Even traffic policemen seldom fine passengers sitting on rear seats for not wearing seat belts.

When the car crashes at high speed, the person seated behind is sometimes thrown at a force of 40G (40 times the gravity, which means the person weighing 80kgs will be like 3200kgs).

If the front passenger is wearing a seat belt and the rear passenger is not, the front passenger is likely to be severely injured or killed due to the rear passenger falling with a weight of an elephant.

The below images which are viral on social media show that seat belts cannot be ignored if one is worried about her life.

Even 20 airbags cannot save a person if the seat belt is not properly strapped in case of such a high impact. 

“There is a need to educate the car buyers how airbags work so that they should not depend on airbags only for their safety. I have seen the dealers not explaining the airbag’s function in detail to their prospective or existing consumers. Even if anyone does, the consumer is not listening. I’m sure this tragic incident will change things for the better and will open people’s eyes. It is wrong to blame one of the largest luxury car makers of the world for no fault of them,” the BMW executive said.