As I was leaving my neighborhood, on a paved road, going about 15mph, my driver seat air bag deployed. It scared the crap out of me. I am glad I was in my neighborhood and not on a main road. I pulled over to see if I had blown a tire or if anything blew under the hood. The outside of the car was in perfect condition and under the hood looked normal. As I got back into the car I smelled the airbag smell. So I looked and the seat air bag had deployed. I was shocked. I called the dealer we purchased the car from and they said to take it into any Honda dealer to have it fixed. This was a lie. I called Arrowhead Honda of Peoria, Az to have the car looked at. They called back at the end of the day and said the car was in an accident. This is total bs. My car was in there shop on June 30th for an oil change and the airbag deployed on July 1st. The car was taken back to arrowhead on July 10th. If this car was in an accident then how the hell did I get it back into perfect condition in 10 days? The carfax shows no accident. That was the best answer they could give me. So I called the dealership that we bought the car from and have not gotten any help from them. They are avoiding this problem. I went online to see if this has happened to any one else an ran into this site. I have filled a complaint with safecar.gov and I am hoping Honda will take care of this. I am extremely frustrated with Honda and there bullshit.

My daughter and others who have been victims of Honda's ignorance of this side airbag deployment problem, take heed! There is indeed power in numbers. Band together and get this problem reported to Honda headquarters at 1-800-999-1009 AND to the National Highway Safety Admin.at 1-888-327-4236. Don't let Honda tell you that a little bump set it off! Demand to be compensated for a serious safety issue. Spread the word on every website you belong to, until Honda corrects the problem at no cost to the consumer. I was going to buy another Honda within the next year, but it might have to be a Subaru or another type. I'm even going to try to get my insurance to put the pressure on Honda if need be!

Update from Jul 2, 2009: After Honda examined the underside of the car they said that the car probably ran over an object that made a little gash under the sideboard and that this set two sensors off that caused the side airbag to deploy. The question is...would you want a little object or a pothole to deploy an airbag. What would happen if something other than an accident set off three sensors. Supposedly the front airbag would also deploy and if you are driving at any speed, you wouldn;t be able to see traffic, you would crash into someone and then you would truly be in an accident. Now I am going to check the NHTSA site more carefully before buying ANY new vehicle in the near future. A simple bump at five miles an hours could cause you to be injured and at a greater speed you could either sustain severe injuries or die. How many incidences does it take for anyone to take action. Unbelievable that this unsafe sensor placement has been ocurring for at least three years now and not one thing has changed. No recalls have happened. If any one dies from this will action finally happen...I wonder. Sorry that all the punctuation in this report is messed up, but my keys are not working correctly on this site.

This happened to me back in 2006 on my 2006 Honda Element. Neither the dealer or Honda ever assumed any responsibility for the defect. As I refused to pay the $1200 to have it repaired myself, I am driving a car without the side airbags, possibly any airbags, today. The number of people with this problem has grown dramatically since I originally submitted this complaint to the Element Owners web site but to date no recall has been offered from Honda and the NHTSA hasn't required one. Thanks Honda for both your quality product and your never ending customer support! Anyway if you own a Honda Element you should read this...

While driving home from work on a nice smooth So. Cal freeway on a nice sunny day, the drivers side, side airbag just decided to deploy! As anyone who has ever been in an accident can tell you, It's quite a ruckus when these let loose! My ears where ringing and my eyes burning but I was able to keep the car under control and avoided any further damages to my self or others...Pretty lucky I think!

I pull over and have a look at the car and think, where's the bullet holes? Everything looks just fine...no damages to anything but the drivers side seat which has the seam blown out and this little blue bag a little bigger than a sock dangling down to the side. I took a look at my upper arm and noticed a pretty healthy welt comming up where the bag had smacked me on the way out. Still, pretty lucky I think...

Long story short, I took it to the dealer. After 2 days of "looking at the car", they determined it was my fault and that I hit or ran over something that hit the sensor under the car causing the bag to deploy and either my self or my insurance would be paying the $1280 it would cost to repair the 6 month old car.

Please understand this is about the safety issue not the $1280. I have had the car since it had 4 miles on it and have never hit or been hit by anything other than a rock the size of a marble that broke my windshield. I've never run over anything either. Let me ask this, If this sensor is so susceptible to being hit , why is it under the car of all places? Seems like a poor location choice to me.

Anyway, after the dealership told me I was on my own, I started doing a little research on some of the popular Element sites like this one, hondasuv.com and also the NHTSA site. I found there had been several of these accidental deployments and almost all had the exact same response from the dealer. What bothered me most was that only 2 of the incidents where reported to the NHTSA!

The NHTSA is the government agency that keeps info on these sort of defects and if enough of them get reported they'll do an investigation and if it is warranted will force the manufacturer to fix the problem through a recall! The catch is...People have to report the problem to the NHTSA! No report, no repairs and the problem never gets fixed. It's very simple to report a problem...just go tohttp://www.safercar.gov/ and click on "report a problem.

Anyway, if any of you have had this problem or know any of the other Element owners who have, please let me know or point them to the NHTSA site to fillout a report. You can drop me a note here or e-mail it to me at phil2000@pacbell.net. It's my hope we can get this repaired for all of us before it causes someone to be seriously injured or killed.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Who knows maybe we can save a few lives here for nothing more than the time to fill out a report!