SA Roadtests
South Africa
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Pic: Supplied
Posted: 25 October 2017
Previously published in the August 2017 edition of Galaxy News, Pietermaritzburg
We hate clickbait but sometimes the headings are at least somewhat true: You can just hear your mom saying, “Don’t put your feet up on the dash. It’s unladylike.” Or: “You’ll scratch the plastic.” Now she could add: “You’ll break your legs. Or even die.”
What a pain. But she’s right. An unexpected collision could trigger the airbags that are meant to save you, with disastrous results. They deploy at between 160 and 350 km/h, driving your feet back with them before you can possibly react. Broken ankles, shins, knees or femurs anyone? And if the impact pushes one of your knee bones back through your face bone it could kill you instantly; not that we want to scare you or anything.
The collision that starts it might be accidental but airbag-related collateral damage, resulting from a poor choice of seating position, is plain stupidity.
Two years ago, Audra Tatum of Walker County, Georgia ignored her husband’s warnings not to ride with her feet up. Another car crashed into theirs from the side, causing the front airbags to deploy. "When the airbag exploded, it pushed my foot up into my face," Tatum said. The force broke not only her ankle and femur, but also her nose and shoulder.
At the hospital after the crash, doctors told Tatum that had her feet been on the floor, she wouldn't have had any issues whatsoever. As it is she suffers with residual pain two years later. "I regret it every day," Tatum told her local news channel, "every hour of every day; because every time I put pressure on my leg I feel it. Do not sit like that."
As much as we hate to admit it mothers, and husbands, do know best.
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SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8