Parents driving cars with babies on their laps: Here's how even air bags can kill you

We have many rules in place for driving, but many tend to ignore them to suit their convenience. Many Indian parents are unaware of child safety in cars and other vehicles, and this often leads to mishaps and injuries. Even though good quality children's car seats are available in the market, Indians hardly install them in their vehicles, due to the lack of interest or knowledge about child safety. On social media too, people often post videos of driving cars with their toddlers on their lap. These videos may be posted to show the parent’s love for their kids, but they are doing a disservice to society. Recently, a doctor warned against such dangerous practices at a time when such videos are going viral on the internet for all the wrong reasons.

What happens in case of a collision
In a clip shared by Kerala-based Dr Ashwin Rajanesh on his X page a few days ago, a child can be seen peacefully sleeping on a man’s lap while he drives a car. Sharing the video, the doctor commented, ‘Looks adorable. But in the event of a frontal collision and subsequent airbag deployment, the infant’s skull would be accelerated at 320 km/hour inches into the man’s thoracic cage, killing both instantly. Indian parents need a harsh reality check.'
If you watch the video carefully, it is quite clear that the driver hasn’t worn seat belts, which is another dangerous trend among Indian drivers. The air bag won’t be released, in case an accident occurs if you haven’t worn the seat belt. In this case, the child’s head would bang on the steering wheel. Your child should be buckled in a car seat to ensure their safety during car rides.

Even safety features like airbags could be dangerous if you don’t follow the safety rules. Usually, the airbags are installed below the horn pad on the steering wheel. This area is made using a thin layer of plastic to deploy the airbag quickly in the instance of a collision. Moreover, it has been designed to deploy with an explosion before it inflates. The airbag gets inflated when a chemical reaction takes place involving sodium azide. The electric signals received from various sides of the vehicle activate the inflator. Sodium azide then combines with sodium nitrate to inflate the airbag. This happens within a few milliseconds after the collision preventing the passenger’s head or chest from getting hit on the steering wheel.