Car Accident advice needed please

Where shall I start,

Last Thursday after taking my daughter to school, my husband was driving back and a dog ran out in front of him, he swerved avoiding the dog, which promptly scarpered across the field, we dont know who the dog belongs to and have never seen it before.



The problem is our car ended up in a ditch, sideways on, the insurance company was called and the car taken away on one of those transporter trucks, We have been told that the car is beyond repair and will have to be written off.



NONE of the 6 airbags in the car deployed, O.K. he was not driving fast , and did not hit anything, but the car did end up in the quite deep ditch, and is totally wrecked, Should I mention to the insurance company about the airbags ? It only dawned on us over the weekend that we could have been driving around in a car for 6 years with airbags that dont work.



It had it’s control technique last year and passed no problem,



Regards

Jan

Thanks Jacqueline,



That makes more sense to me now, I would not have believed so much damage could be caused, the bodywork was a bit bashed but

the front axle was in 2 pieces completely snapped, the wishbone suffered the same fate, and they said there was a lot of damage to the underside of the car. but did not specify what yet, I expect we will receive more detailed information soon.

You know it was amazing how kind people are here, at least 6 people stopped and asked if they could help.

Hi Janis,

Airbags are not tested on the CT so don’t worry about that. Airbags are designed to go off under very sudden deceleration such as an impact.

If your car ended in a ditch the movement may not have been sudden enough to set them off, even though, when the car came to rest enough damage was caused to wreck the car.

To be honest, unless you have sustained injuries from bashing your head against the steering wheel or the B pillar then be thankful the bags did not deploy. I have seen a few minor accidents where the bags have deployed and caused more injury than they were aiming to prevent. They are not pleasant things.

Equally, your insurance companay will not be interested whether the bags worked or not, it bears no relevance to the damage on the car that has already been considered a write off.

Unless you have been driving with the airbag light flashing at you for the last 6 years then you can assume that they were working correctly. A diagnostics plug used when the car is serviced would always flag a fault with them.

Hope this helps.