Getting a logo branded to your arm after an accident is a lot more common than you think.
Twitter user @PielCanela is getting a lot of attention on the bird app for one unique scar she received after unfortunately getting T-boned by another car. On her forearm is some pretty gnarly scarring shaped like a Nissan logo.
You can see her tweet with the photo linked here and a blurred out photo of the scarring below.
I’m only blurring it out and with black and white because Google has strict publisher restrictions about posting blood. Also, people get squeamish at the sight of the red liquid.
Scroll through the replies and there are a lot of people who’ve received fresh branding after unfortunately getting into an accident.
Someone pointed this out, which I think is hilarious.
before social media, people just got branded with a car logo and carried on with their lives thinking they were special
— Andreas Symeou (@andreastweeted) March 5, 2022
All of these unfortunate car logo tattoos begs the question, can an airbag brand a logo on your arm in the traditional sense of the word?
Let’s see how an airbag operates. As you can see in the video below, an airbag deploying happens faster than the blink of an eye. An explosive charge inflates and deflates the airbag before you even know what’s happening.
The chemical reaction gets as hot as 500°F inside the bag and up to 190°F degrees when measured on the bag’s surface.
Airbags are literal lifesavers but, due to the violent nature of how they work, they aren’t exactly gentle about their business.
While airbags can prevent and lessen life-threatening injuries, they can cause minor injuries on their own and often leave drivers and passengers with heavy bruising.
Airbags are so violent that they can fatally injure babies and small children. It’s why there are sensors in front passenger seats that automatically disable airbags if not enough weight is detected.
Now, according to Burn Centre Care, a surface as hot as 176°F over a short period of time is all that’s needed to cause severe skin burns so, on paper, at least, it seems like it’s possible for an airbag to cause a logo to be branded to your skin.
As you can see in this exploded airbag on this Honda, the airbag deploys, splitting its casing on the steering wheel in a specific way. The logo is still intact and, depending on how this airbag opens, is pushed quickly and violently out of the way.
It isn’t the hot, exploding, and expanding airbag’s temperature heating up the logo and making contact with your skin that’s causing the branding, it’s the logo literally exploding towards a part of your body, often your arm, that’s causing this branding effect.
You’d get a similar but not-as-long lasting effect if you slapped the logo with your hand really hard. It’d leave an imprint on the palm of your hand.
Now, imagine a small explosion forcing that logo into the palm of your hand, and you can imagine how potentially painful that can be. It’d sure leave an imprint.
It’s a small price to pay for unintentionally using this life-saving technology and, from the car logo branding I’ve seen, the victims often comment that the logo’s all but faded away after a few months.
Actually NO, they do NOT fade away. at all, depending on how you were holding a steering wheel, AKA the correct way and how hard your car was hit. A metal medallion that serves no purpose to the function of the vehicle should not be placed in the middle of an exploding airbag. Even a tiny bruise from this logo medallion is unacceptable, even if it does go away. There should be nothing metal, or frivolous, in that area with the knowledge that it can cause burns and bruising on its own functioning. This change should be standard across all makes and models. No exceptions. No one should take any hit for a badly placed logo.