BS: Air Bags actuated by sodium azide

Subject: BS: Air Bags actuated by sodium azide
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 03:01 PM

Murder by air-bag component.

I've been an enthusiastic reader of the mystery novels of J. A. Jance for some years now, ever since she first started writing. She lived in Arizona at one time, but now she makes her home in Seattle. She writes two series': "J. P. Beaumont" is a Seattle homicide detective, and the author uses real locals in her stories, most of which are very familiar to me; her other series is set in Arizona and her protagonist is "Joanna Brady," a single mother who is also the local sheriff. She's a good writer, weaves an intriguing mystery, and when a new novel comes out, I'm on it pretty fast.

In her latest mystery, Partners in Crime, she brings her two sleuths together. But more important, in this novel she has come up with a genuine problem that it might be well for people to know about. I'm not sure what all dangers may be involved, but one of them is most definitely environmental.

Article here.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Air Bags actuated by sodium azide
From: CraigS
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 07:36 PM

As a qualified chemist, I am astonished that sodium azide is being used in this circumstance. Apart from the toxicity of the substance, it takes very little chemical knowledge to make a high explosive from sodium azide (and people wonder how terrorists can get bomb materials so easily). The substance is an explosive in its own right, which is why it has been chosen - when exploded, it releases nitrogen. On the other hand, why can't the manufacturers use a compressed gas system?

I might also add that when I was at the University of Middlesex, which is the British authority on road safety, I met a man in the bar one night who told me that air bags are nowhere near as good as seat belts as an injury prevention device, but they were more popular in the US than in the UK because more people in the US refuse to wear seatbelts.

Subject: RE: BS: Air Bags actuated by sodium azide
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 07:46 PM

I hate not having a seat belt on. I find it's so uncomfortable, lurching all over the place. I don't have an airbag, because they weren't fitted in the car when I bought it. Now I feel happier about that.

Chuck Berry never wrote a song about an airbag did he?

Subject: RE: BS: Air Bags actuated by sodium azide
From: catspaw49
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 08:00 PM

I think there is a significant need for edible airbags. Let's say you crash down an embankment in the middle of the night......The airbag deploys and saves your life, but the car is crushed around you and you're trapped. It might be hours before you're found!!! An edible airbag could then provide you with a source of nutrtion until help arrives.

I want to credit this idea to Gilbert Gnarley and his friends out at the Mount Pia Zadora Nursing Home.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Air Bags actuated by sodium azide
From: Bert
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 08:36 PM

...Air Bags actuated by sodium azide...

Actually, our resident airbag is actuated by flatulence.

Subject: RE: BS: Air Bags actuated by sodium azide
From: Sorcha
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 10:44 PM

LOL, bert, but the thing is scary, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Air Bags actuated by sodium azide
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 08:15 AM

Airbags scare the hell out of me - I wouldn't drive a car that has one. I mean, I wear glasses; presumably this thing would smash the glasses into my eyes, blinding me? Or tear my head off, since I'm not tall.

As I understand it, airbags are a US thing, because Americans feel that wearing a seatbelt is a horrible assault on their personal freedom (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Air Bags actuated by sodium azide
From: InOBU
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 08:23 AM

My dear friend McGrath... there is another way not to lurch about as you drive, though I do endorce the use of seat belts... slow down before curves, don't play the banjo as you drive, don't drive on the sidewalk, park in front of the house and not in the living room. I hope this helps with the lurching... Did Spaw teach you to drive, by the way???
Cheers and ;-)
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Air Bags actuated by sodium azide
From: InOBU
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 08:24 AM

PS If you grasp the stearing wheel as you drive, the lurching is bearable as well... Cheers again, Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Air Bags actuated by sodium azide
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 08:42 AM

I might try that last one.

All insurance claims here ask if you were wearing a seat-belt at the time of an accident - and since the law says you have to wear one, I assume that would mean the insurers would be likely to throw out any claims for people who say they weren't.

Subject: RE: BS: Air Bags actuated by sodium azide
From: InOBU
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 08:46 AM

Yes... they asked me, where you wearing as seat belt, and I said, "Yes... however, it was not attached to the car at the time, had to keep the trousers up..." Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Air Bags actuated by sodium azide
From: JJ
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 12:49 PM

Back in the spring of 2001 my friend the Chemist told me of his worry about airbags, and he had the same concerns as CraigS.

The typical airbag has 1.25 pounds of sodium azide in it, he said. Through a fairly simple process this could be converted about six pounds of... another substance, let's say.

The Chemist explained that both are explosives, but the other substance releases the nitrogen much faster. He called it, "The difference between a 'whoosh' and a 'ka-boom.'"

The Chemist said it was a terrorist's dream.

Subject: RE: BS: Air Bags actuated by sodium azide
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 12:50 PM

Apparently the article in the Tucson Citizen that I linked to above has hit its "sell by" date and has been pulled.

The general thrust of the article is that mystery writer Judy Jance has called attention to the possible dangers of sodium azide, a potentially deadly chemical which is used to actuate automobile air bags. The main danger (as far as I know) seems to be environmental. It is a very potent chemical, and when cars with intact air bags are junked, it can get into the environment. But—it also served Jance well in that it provided a convenient method of murder in her most recent mystery novel. Sodium azide is as deadly as cyanide, and although there is probably not all that much danger when you're driving, it does make me a bit nervous to think that it's right there under my nose whenever I'm in an automobile.

When an air bag is actuated, the sodium azide is ignited and within a twentieth of a second it produces large quantities of nitrogen (no danger there; roughly 80% of the earth's atmosphere is nitrogen) which inflates the air bag. It seems to me that there should be all kinds of ways of accomplishing the same thing without using sodium azide. Apart from providing a deadly poison for anyone who might want to get at it, Jance points out that the environmental danger from sodium azide could be essentially eliminated if one of the steps in junking a car was to actuate the air bag.

Here are links to other stories:— Blicky 1 and Blicky 2. And here is more than you could ever possibly want to know about how air bags work: Blicky 3.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Air Bags actuated by sodium azide
From: CraigS
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 03:27 PM

There is a good reason for not actuating the airbags - the airbag and actuator cost around £75 ($100) to replace, and are one of the likeliest parts to be salvaged from a wreck. On the other hand, from my memory of (British) explosives regulations, storing them on a shelf or in a box together would breach the regulations, while leaving them in the wrecks until needed would not. Incidentally, I am reliably informed that the airbags on European Fords will not actuate unless the seatbelt is being worn - belt and braces approach?

Spaw - if you like, I'll do you a dish of Pneu Farcie avec Amortisseurs Brules for dinner!