A Tribute to Safety

As much as I'd like to say I'll go to the furthest extremes to get the story, I hadn't planned on investigating airbag safety and crash test worthiness when I set out to review the 2004 Mazda Tribute. But the fickle hand of fate interceded Monday afternoon - that and a slippery combination of wet roads and bad tires.

Shortly after picking up the 2004 Mazda Tribute ES for my intended week long test drive, fate intervened. (Photo: Mazda)

Mere minutes after picking up the test drive of the week, a 2004 Tribute ES, a compact car lost control in the coming lane, crossed the centre line and hit the Mazda SUV flush in the nose.

The next thing I knew I was face first in a powdery pillow, a little jarred and a lot freaked. Lifting my gaze over the deployed driver's side airbag, gentle wisps of smoke drifted skyward from the point of impact.

A compact car lost control in the coming lane, crossed the centre line and hit the Mazda SUV flush in the nose. (Photo: Rob Newell, Canadian Auto Press)

Gathering my senses and taking a quick inventory of body parts, I instinctively put the Tribute in park and got out of the small-size sport utility vehicle. The driver of the other car was doing likewise, but her passenger was pinned into his seat, taking the full brunt of the impact as the compact swung around just before hitting my larger and taller vehicle.

As anyone who has been in a motor vehicle accident can attest, the next hour or so, albeit adrenaline fueled, went by in a bit of a blur. Paramedics, fire rescue and police were quickly on the scene, and made short work of cutting the injured man out of the frail, and no doubt written-off, compact car. A firefighter told me that his crew had a training exercise earlier that day almost identical to the real-world work needed to be done to get the passenger out of the older, crumpled car.