NHTSA proposes advanced air bag requirement by 2006.

Advanced air bag systems that reduce the risk of accidental death when the bags inflate would be required in new cars and light trucks, according to rules proposed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The proposed upgrade to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208, Occupant Crash Protection, would require advanced air bags in some vehicles beginning in September 2002 and in all new cars and light trucks by September 2006.

Since 1990, according to NHTSA statistics, 66 children and 57 adults have been killed by air bags in car crashes (almost 3,500 have been saved). First-generation air bags were designed to protect an average (50th percentile) 5-foot 8-inch man weighing 171 pounds. These air bags inflated at speeds up to 200 mph with enough force to kill infants, children, and small women--usually those not wearing seat belts or sitting too near the deployment zone.

The new air bags should protect a range of body sizes and weights, deploying just fast enough to cushion the faces, chests, and heads of children and small women without being so slow that they endanger larger men. The new performance requirements would be tested in "real-world crash conditions," and upgraded injury criteria would include, for example, neck and chest injuries in small females.

Advanced air bags would be tested using a "full-barrier test" in which a car or truck with an unbelted dummy is crashed into a fixed barrier at 30 mph. The tests would use new crash-test dummies replicating 1-, 3-, and 6- year-old children and a small (5th percentile) 4-foot 11-inch adult female weighing 108 pounds in addition to the 50th percentile male dummy.

Auto manufacturers and lobbyists say this type of unbelted occupant test resulted in the first-generation air bags that were too powerful. Also, they argue that unbelted testing is senseless since air bags are not alternatives to seat belts. They say the "sled test" used to develop the air bags that deploy with less force is sufficient. In sled tests, a crash of instruments containing the air bag components is simulated instead of actually crashing an entire vehicle.

"New information and better science provided by the advanced air bag proposal will save additional lives by overcoming the limitations of the sled test and previous injury criterion," said a NHTSA spokesperson. New technology can control deployment force, and NHTSA believes real-world crash protection tests are essential. The administration proposes to phase out the sled-test option as vehicles with advanced air bags are phased in and required to be certified in the unbelted barrier test at speeds up to and including 30 mph.

"Advanced air bags will never eliminate the need for all vehicle occupants to wear seat belts, and the back seat still will be the safest seating position for children," said the spokesperson. "Young children should still be transported in safety seats or booster seats appropriate for their age."