Pat Mucci,
I'm glad the airbags worked properly and you were able to walk away. SUVs doing 55 can cause a lot of damage.
Peter,
The airbag never went off.
I was hit in the rear, blasted into and crossing the oncoming lane where an oncoming SUV just missed me due to that car's alert driver swerving to avoid me, I then impacted an 8 inch curb, going airborne and into a guardrail.
The police, who were there quickly, wouldn't let me out of my car until the ambulance arrived despite my repeated attempts to get out.
When one of the officers asked why I was so intent on getting out of my car I told him that I needed to check on some items in my trunk, my golf clubs.
That's when he told me that I didn't have a trunk.
I had two sets of clubs in my trunk.
Fortunately, they escaped unscathed by taking residence in my back seat. Only a spare 3-wood laying on the floor of the trunk was demolished along with everything else.
I was told that rear end collisions don't trigger the air bag, but, I don't understand why it didn't deploy when I impacted the guard rail.
Had I had my foot on the brake, the outcome wouldn't have been so good. The driver of the SUV never saw me despite about 500 yards of unobstructed roadway and plenty of room to my right. She later said that she panicked and hit the gas instead of the brake.
It just goes to show you how quickly your life can change, or end.