A few days ago, a massive accident involving a Mahindra Scorpio-N became viral on the Internet. The SUV crashed into a tree and the roof of the vehicle ripped open. However, the passengers travelling in the vehicle remained safe and escaped with a few minor injuries. The Scorpio-N owner has now tweeted to Anand Mahindra asking him to take steps to improve the quality of the car since the airbags did not open.
@anandmahindra 🙏
Met with a fatal road accident on 11th June while driving Scorpio N with my family my younger daughter is critical. Unfortunately none of the airbags open. Pl take care for further development. pic.twitter.com/yp3tUZGmpp— BIBEKANANDA DASH (@bibek_india) June 13, 2023
The accident of the Scorpio-N happened because the driver of the car slept off while driving and lost control of the car. The vehicle was going through a forest area and it crashed into a tree. However, everyone came out safely from the mangled Scorpio-N remains.
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This is the top-end Mahindra Scorpio-N Z8 variant which comes with six airbags. According to the owner, none of the airbags did not open in the accident.
Why the airbags would not deploy?
Let’s begin by understanding the functioning of airbags. When the airbag Electronic Control Unit (ECU) receives a signal from the sensor detecting deceleration, it activates the triggering circuit to inflate and deploy the airbags. The ECU determines whether or not to deploy the airbags based on a specific threshold of deceleration.
If the deceleration level is not significant enough, the airbags will not be deployed. This explains why the airbags may deploy when a vehicle collides head-on with a wall at 20 km/h, for example. On the other hand, if you were to hit a large sponge at 40 km/h, the airbags may not deploy because the sensors do not detect sufficient deceleration.
In the case of skidding accidents, it is possible that the airbags do not deploy. If the rollover sensor does not register a rollover, the curtain airbags may not be activated. However, the side impact sensors should have been triggered and deployed the airbags during the rollover. It seems that even this did not occur in the situation you described.
Further, the effectiveness of airbag deployment is directly linked to the initial impact. As airbags contain explosive elements, deploying them when passengers are not in the optimal position within the vehicle can potentially cause more harm than good. In reality, the explosive nature of airbags can pose a risk of injury to the passengers.
Scorpio-N gets a five-star rating
Based on the previous G-NCAP ratings, the new Scorpio-N achieved a score of 29.25 out of 34 for adult occupant protection and 28.94 out of 48 for child occupant protection. Notably, the Mahindra Scorpio-N demonstrated excellent performance in the side impact test conducted under the new protocol.
Global N-CAP’s evaluation determined that the Mahindra Scorpio-N provides commendable protection for the necks of both the driver and passengers. However, the protection for their chests was found to be only marginal. In the side impact test using a deformable barrier, the Scorpio-N excelled and achieved a near-perfect score of 16 out of 17 points. Additionally, the Mahindra Scorpio-N received an acceptable rating for the side pole impact test. Nevertheless, the chest region of the occupants received a “weak” rating in this particular scenario.
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