‘Just Might Be Saving Your Life’: Man Bedazzles His Car With Stars From The Dollar General. Then He Deploys The Airbags

It’s easy to forget, while enjoying the smooth-riding comfort of a well-made automobile, that from a physics standpoint, every loose or semi-secure object inside can become a harmful projectile in a collision. We can thank the constant rule of force = mass x acceleration for that, along with the ballistics involved in fast-deploying airbags intended to prevent injuries in the first place.

We learn from a recent Facebook Reel how dangerous some simple interior decorations can be when an airbag is involved. The clip from automotive creator Troy Watts on his Real Crushin’ Florida channel shows viewers how lightweight decorations affixed to the center of a steering wheel could turn deadly.

“A lot of firefighters and EMTs reached out to me after my last video and said, 'You have to show what happens when people bedazzle their airbag on their steering wheel,'” Watts said in the video that’s been viewed more than 377,000 times.

Bedazzled Steering Wheel: Projectile Problems

A stop at Dollar General produced a bag of decorative plastic stars and a package of thumbtacks, inexpensive substitutes for the rhinestones and faux gems that have become common on customized steering wheels shared across social media. To help visualize where the objects might travel, he also positioned balloons throughout the cabin at roughly head height for occupants of different sizes.

The results were immediate and alarming. When the airbag burst through the center of the steering wheel, it scattered the decorations throughout the vehicle instead of simply knocking them to the floor.

A thumbtack ended up lodged in the driver's seat upholstery. Plastic stars and loose tacks were strewn across the front seats, the rear bench, and even into the far-back cargo area. The scattered debris showed how violently lightweight objects can be propelled by the force of a deploying airbag.

Watts also mentions what he describes as a documented case involving a woman whose decorative steering wheel trim was propelled into her upper neck and jaw during an airbag deployment. In 2025, physicians at the University of Miami published a case report describing a woman whose aftermarket, rhinestone-covered steering wheel emblem became a high-speed projectile when her airbag deployed during a crash.

The object pierced her eye socket and lodged in the frontal lobe of her brain, requiring emergency eye surgery and a craniotomy to remove it.

'Turns That Life Saving Device Into A Claymore'

There wasn’t much convincing needed among many viewers who work around crashed vehicles. Mechanics, firefighters, and emergency responders quickly turned the comments into something resembling a safety roundtable, with many saying the demonstration mirrored concerns they'd had for years.

One of the most common reactions came from mechanics who said they'd encountered similarly decorated steering wheels in their own shops.

"As an automotive technician I see this all the time and I warn them," one commenter wrote. "People think they'll never be in an wreck they drive so perfectly..... What about the other people on the road driving? You can definitely be in a major accident and it not be caused by you."

That person added that some technicians are so uneasy about the potential hazard that they've declined to work on vehicles with heavily decorated steering wheels, describing them as "claymore steering wheel[s]" because of the possibility that attached objects could become shrapnel if an airbag deployed.

Other commenters with emergency response experience said the demonstration reflected what they'd seen firsthand after crashes. A former firefighter noted that people struck broadside often suffer the worst injuries despite having done nothing wrong themselves.

Another viewer recounted being stopped at a red light when a drunk driver crashed into his vehicle, leaving him with years of physical therapy, neck surgery, and more than $44,000 in medical bills. "You can be a really good driver, a really careful driver, and sometimes it just doesn't matter," they wrote.

Viewers wondered about the danger potential of other common in-cabin items: magnetic phone mounts attached to airbags, rubber ducks piled across Jeep dashboards, decorative rocks, pets riding on drivers' laps, and even rigid hair claw clips that could become dangerous during a collision. 

While the risks vary depending on the object and its location, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has specifically warned drivers not to attach aftermarket decorations to steering wheel airbag covers because they can become dangerous projectiles during deployment.

Motor1 reached out to Watts via phone and email. We’ll update this if they respond.