45-50 mph head on collision, no airbags deployed?

[mad_kows2]

Hi last night i crashed my 10 plate scirocco (every one was fine), im very lucky not to have written it off entirely. The front end is completely crushed and in a very sorry state. The impact was direct head on collision into another car at around 45-50mph.

Im slightly concerned that at impact of this speed, where the other car involved was writen off and mine is very crushed, there were no air bags deployed at all?

i thought air bags were supposed to deploy in head on collisions of speeds over around 15mph?

Is this normal or was there a fault?

Thanks

[Eshrules]

any pictures of the damage?

[Lateknight]

First off, glad to hear everybody is ok. Thats always first consideration after an accident. Cars can be replaced/ repaired.

Was the accident 'off-centre' at all? If anything above 15-20 degrees from centre the front bags wont deploy for fear of you not landing on them correctly in the middle. If its dead centre and you were doing the speed stated they should have been triggered.

Is the 40/50mph estimate a combined speed between the 2 cars or just what you were doing?

If your having the repairs done at a VW authorised bodyshop, (you should - insist your insurance company take it to a vw approved 'shop) ask them to see if there is any crash data stored in the vehicles ecu.

[vc-10]

See this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvoumToSP5c
It depends on what you hit. The car made the right decision- everyone was fine. The Sirocco, like the Espace in the video, is a modern car that thinks before triggering the airbags. If it's not necessary, it won't do it. If they had gone off, your car might have been written off as the airbags are expensive things to replace.