The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has come up with five proposals in response to the 30 deaths attributed to passenger-side air bags and the 18 attributed to driver-side bags.
NHTSA’s proposals for air bags, which by law are required to be in all cars for the 1998 model year and all trucks for the 1999 model year, call for:
– Labeling cars and child seats with warnings about the potential danger of air bags.
– Allowing consumers to have their air bags disconnected.
– Requiring vehicles to offer cut-off switches so bags can be deactivated when a child or short adult is seated in front of one.
– Allowing automakers to produce air bag systems that deploy with less force than the current 200 mile-per-hour speed and change the test procedure used to determine system reliability.
– Mandating automakers to introduce “smart” air bags that determine whether kids or small adults are seated in their path to alter or deactivate deployment.
Here is a rundown on each proposal:
Labels: NHSTA has mandated that, within three months, the automakers put labels on visors and the dash in all vehicles and that, within six months, child-seat makers fix a warning label near the head of the seat warning that air bags can kill children and that a rear-facing child seat should never be in the path of the passenger-side bag.
The labels also must tell passengers to buckle their belts and advise motorists that the safest place to put a child is buckled up in the back seat.
Though publicly supporting labeling, the criticism within the industry is that motorists will disregard them just as they avoid reading the owner’s manual that spells out how to avoid potential hazards to child seats from air bags. As one industry official bemoaned: “People will buy a $1.50 frozen pizza and read every direction for cooking it in the oven, but they buy a new car for $20,000 and won’t read the owner’s manual.”
The concern is that air-bag warning labels will go unheeded, as have warning labels on cigarette packages or the “Just say no” to drugs bumper stickers.
Disconnecting air bags: NHTSA has proposed allowing customers to have the bags disconnected after they have been informed about the benefits of air bags in saving lives and signing a release absolving the automaker of liability if the bag is disconnected.
It is illegal for the manufacturer, dealer or independent mechanic to disconnect the system, so it’s not clear who would do the work, but there are reports of dealers saying they won’t accept the liability.
The primary criticism of deactivation, according to Dale Dawkins, director of vehicle compliance for Chrysler Corp., is that “if you tell people air bags save lives if you buckle up, but if you are concerned about air bags, you can have them disconnected, you are sending a confusing message.”
“Deactivating the bags could lead to parents becoming complacent about putting their kids in the front seat,” added Jason Vines, Chrysler spokesman.
Though air bags were blamed, all but 4 of 18 fatalities involving driver-side bags and all but 1 of 30 fatalities involving a passenger-side bag were in accidents in which the occupant was not belted or belted improperly. They suffered the full 200-m.p.h. force of air deployment.
Slower-deployment air bags: This is the proposal the automakers have been seeking, allowing them to reduce the 200-m.p.h. force of bag deployment that endangers the soft head and undeveloped neck of infants and small kids as well as the heads of small adults, especially women.
The rule as written 20 years ago, when almost no one wore a safety belt, calls for the passenger-side air bag to protect an unbelted 179-pound male in a 30-m.p.h. collision into a fixed barrier. To do that, the bag deploys at 200 m.p.h.
NHTSA said it is seeking comment on which of two test procedures to use in determining by how much to depower the bag. NHTSA is proposing crash tests and the industry wants sled tests. In crash tests, cars are run into a barrier; with sled tests, a car cabin is put on a sled that rapidly accelerates and decelerates to simulate crash forces. The industry argues sled tests bring faster and easily repeatable results.
“We (auto industry and NHTSA) both agree in a 20 to 30 percent depowering of the bag. The debate is over which test to use, and the sled would allow us to depower the bags quicker,” said Helen Petrauskas, vice president of safety for Ford Motor Co.
“The government wants us to run cars into a wall at a violent speed (30 m.p.h., equal to a car running at 60 m.p.h. into a parked vehicle) to catch and protect an unbelted dummy (to simulate the 179-pound unbelted adult male). Our goal is to simulate a less-violent, more average speed crash using the sled. The bag is now designed to protect that large unbelted male. Our goal is to provide the best protection for the most people and the most vulnerable people, smaller children and smaller adults,” Petrauskas said.
Adopting `smart’ air bags: NHTSA wants to require automakers to start phasing in “smart” air bags, systems that use sensors to detect the presence of a child or infant in the front seat to deactivate the bag, by the 1999 model year.
Smart bags also could sense the speed and angle of impact, the size and position of occupants in the seats and whether they were belted or not to determine whether the bag should be deployed and at what speed.
The automakers argue that while some manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz employ a sensor that can tell whether a child seat is in front of the passenger bag in a two-seat car, the system requires a special child seat. Also, no system has been developed that will sense occupant size and positioning or speed of impact.
The industry is in favor of smart bags and is working to develop them but argues the technology isn’t ready and “pretty smart” bags won’t do.
“They can tell you of the presence of someone in the passenger seat but not if it’s a younger or older child,” said Bob Lange, engineering director of vehicle development for General Motors North American Operations.
Cut-off switches: NHTSA has extended from Dec. 1, 1998, to Dec. 1, 2000, the date automakers can offer cut-off switches in vehicles with no rear seat (pickup trucks, roadsters) so the bag can be deactivated when a child is in the seat. The extension is supposed to give automakers more time to develop smart bags.
Despite the focus on air bags, the auto industry still emphasizes seat belts as the primary safety system in cars and the more than 1,600 lives that have been saved in accidents involving bags and properly belted occupants.
“You can’t mandate that people not worry, but people should realize that no amount of technological wizardry means not having to wear their belts. People must rid themselves of the notion that you can save lives without belts,” Petrauskas said.
NHTSA is asking consumers for comment on the proposals by writing NHTSA, Docket 74-14, Notice 103, 400 7th St. SW, Washington, D.C. 20590. NHTSA will take comments for 30 days.
