Posted By johnwaterson2773 I know it may a bone question but here goes. I have just found out that the air bags in some of our vehicles have been disconnected. We work in a hostile environment and don't wear seatbelts in case we have to extract clients from the vehicle or ourselves in a hurry. I know they shouldn't be disconnected, but is there anyone out there who knows of this happening in the UK, with the police for instance. If there was an RTA and someone hit the windscreen of the armoured car and was unaware of the disconnection of the airbag then the preverbial would hit the fan. I have looked on the HSE site but they only have info on the storage classification and some tips on the removal etc of the airbags. My advice to the company is to ensure that they are all connected as it is a health & safety issue, even though H & S here is nil, even with some of the western companies working here.

Posted By David Kimmins John Airbags are supplemental restraints, meaning they are supplemental to a seatbelt. They are not designed to be used instead of seatbelts. Most are designed to work with seatbelt pretensioners. This is an explosive bolt in the doorframe that pulls in the seatbelt, when you are back with your head on the headrest the airbag will fire. It is not an optimistic scenario to have an airbag go off and not have a seatbelt on. All that said, as the airbag will inflate and deflate in milliseconds they are not an encumberment to extraction and I don't see why they would ever need to be disconnected (unless it was standard practice not to use seatbelts, then you probably would not want to be there when an airbag deployed). A lot of people who have been in a crash where the airbag deployed deny it ever went off, even though there is a empty cloth bag dangling from the center of the steering wheel (or passenger side). It just inflated and deflated before they could see it. David

Posted By Frank Hallett An extremely interesting posting John. I've read it through several times in an attempt to get an understanding of what sort of work situation you're in but failed to get beyond the intriguing snippets about "hostile environments", "clients" and "armoured car". I'm not sure that your question can be effectively answered beyond the very relevant comments about seat-belts and air-bags working in conjunction with each other. I assume that you're not withinin the EU, so the vehicles must be maintained to the minimum standards enforced within the country of work. If modifications are made, there will probably be a very good reason for it but this doesn't sound like the conventional driving job nor conventional circumstances. Frank Hallett

Posted By Brett Day Many modern cars have the facility to 'disconnect' the passenger airbag when carying children via an ignition key operated switch.

Posted By Alison WR have you looked for some kind of 4 point harness with a quick-release catch - the kind of thing I used to wear in a glider [where emergencies are rare but very rapid]