Chevy "Black Box" ie. airbag sensor

[jk3]

I recently had a wreck. I distincly remember putting on my seatbelt and wrecked approx. 200 yards from where I started from, a full stop. There is no legal case involved but my employer pulled the "box" and it shows "no seatbelt" and a collision speed of 88mph. This was a lengthy multiple impact which started with a blow to the rear right panel. The vehicle flipped several times. My question is: Could the sensor have engaed only after some part of the collision activated the sensor well into the event? If so is it possible that the wheels not being in contact with the roadway could cause a false reading of speed? I can't believe that I could drive that fast on a congested city street in that short of a distance. Any input is appreciated.

[Viper 10]

JK:

DO NOT take the dealerships word for anything technical like this. They are NOT engineers and cannot determine if there are any problems surrounding the code or internals to that device or the sensors that feed it.

Talk to some experts in automotive crash forensics. They will take your car apart and rebuild the accident and find the cause(s) to your problem. I know of two here in Southern California. Drop me a line at bhchang@earthlink.com if I can be of further assistance. They have represented GM, Ford, Audi, Nissan, Honda, Mazda, Toyota, VW, Porsche and Daimler-Chrysler (on multiple occsions). Many of these manufacturers are their regular clients. They also analyze racing crashes.

Don't lose hope, these people are great at these kinds of problems. They serve as expert witnesses in lawsuits representing manufacturers (and sometimes the individuals) all of the time. You could easily bury this into the cost of the lawsuit to recover what is rightfully yours.

Take care,

Brad

[gizmo]

In order to prove that you were not wearing a seat belt they will have to prove that the system cannot record a false condition. i.e. can the sensor, connectors or harness give a conditon that registers that the seat belt is not being worn when in fact it is. For example if the impact jolted the connector to the sensor breaking th circuit. If this can occure it cannot be used as absolute proof that you were not wearing your belt. Also the airbag sensor is used to stop the recording of event data. There should be several seconds of data stored so you need to ge the whole history. The recording stops then the airbag is deployed so if your were airbourn befor the airbag went of the wheel speed may have gone up recording a higher aparant road speed.

[NiceDeals.co.uk]

you'll be surprised at how you can mis judge your speed even on short stretches especially if you're driving a high quality car.