Airbags save lives and under some freakish statistical aberrations do injure and kill people from time to time. This can be said about every single safety innovation out there.
The offroad lore is grounded in some very real early issues with early airbags installed by some large domestic makers that shall remain nameless. In efforts to cut pennies, single sensors were used out front in the frame where the impact starts, rather than multiple sensors with one in the passenger area. In further penny chasing, these were crap sensors that could be "fooled" into thinking a collision was happening if the frame banged hard on a rock. So, there were indeed some airbag deployments when the frame was only slightly bent by a heavy impact of the frame on rocks.
Toyota uses top grade multiple sensor airbag systems - even going so far as to use gold plated connectors to absolutely minimize corrosion in the airbag harnesses. So, there should be no worries on the 80.
Anecdotally, I was at a large Moab event when a vehicle driven by an inexperienced driver on a series of ledges lost control and slammed a ledge, deploying the airbags and causing injury. It was interesting in the aftermath to see the forum accounts of this "accidental" deployment which was anything but. The occupants would likely have been far more injured without them as it was quite a hit and lots of damage. Interestingly, the probable reason for the loss of control was the ABS system kicking in, which is something that I feel very strongly should be disabled for offroading. This issue was ignored in favor of more circulation of the airbag issue.
Suffice to say that quality airbag systems are not subject to accidental deployment in that way. The way its done is a master sensor away from the front of the vehicle compares its deceleration with the sensor(s) at the very front and if the master sensor is not agreeing that a collision is happening (such as when you slam the frame on a rock) then the airbags are not deployed. Generally, the master sensor is in the center console area.
In addition, a lot of cheap systems were calibrated to be way too powerful when they deployed, rather than following the European/Japanese standards. Around '97 or so these were phased out. So, today's systems are a far cry from the originals - even the domestics.
There are also some "one box" systems completely contained to the center console area. Faster processers allow these to react just as fast as the systems with a sensor way out on the vehicle's front end. The reason speed was needed is the old systems needed the micro seconds between the front end impact and the subsequent deceleration of the passenger area to get a head start on deployment decision making. The new "one box" stuff can still get the airbags out well on time even if it gets the collision news much later than if a sensor were on the vehicle's front.
DougM
