airbags

^BC-AUTOS-SAFETY
^New U.S. rules for vehicle air bags expected
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government Monday will propose new rules for air bags aimed at providing greater crash protection at high speeds while avoiding deaths in relatively minor fender benders.
Manufacturers were allowed in 1997 to reduce the inflation speed of the airbags by up to a third in response to the deaths of children and short-stature adults who were too close to the devices when they inflated.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said at the time that it viewed the reduced inflation-speed as an interim step on the way to a new generation of air bags that could provide protection in a wider range of conditions.
Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater and NHTSA administrator Ricardo Martinez are due to hold a news conference at 11:30 a.m. EDT to unveil the proposed rules.
NHTSA believes more than 3,300 people are alive because of the airbags that federal authorities ordered phased-in to passenger vehicles starting in 1990.
But there have also been 113 deaths -- two-thirds of them children and infants -- reported from air bags inflating in crashes at speeds as low as five miles per hour.
Air bags that inflate with less force are helping curb deaths at low speeds but federal safety officials worry that this could be outweighed by greater deaths in severe accidents.
Car makers and auto safety groups expect the government to require manufacturers to make an air bag capable of protecting an unbelted occupant in a vehicle that hits a solid barrier at 30 miles per hour.
The expected return of the high-speed test, which in real life is equivalent to hitting a parked car at 60 mph , dismays the American Automobile Manufacturers Association (AMAA) representing Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Corp..
AMAA director of regulatory affairs, Barry Felrice, said the immediate effect would be to force manufacturers to return to a faster inflating air bag along with the accompanying risks for short-stature adults and children incorrectly placed in the front.
``To repower them (the air bags) makes absolutely no sense,'' Felrice said in an interview last week. ``It's much more energy than you ever needed to protect unbelted occupants in high speed crashes and it's causing harm in low speed crashes so why would we want to go back there?''
But organizations like Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety think the new rules, if properly framed, will help usher in new air bag technologies capable of tailoring their inflation to different impact speeds and various sizes of occupants.
``We're encouraged that NHTSA is on the right track,'' said Henry Jasney, general counsel for the road safety group. ``We are not against returning to the unbelted, full power test as long as the rule will provide protection for the groups that are having problems -- children and short-statured aduls.''
Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog group, said some foreign automakers have already come up with airbag designs capable of high-speed protection without putting drivers and passengers at risk in minor accidents.
The consumer group also said the concern about unbelted occupants in severe crashes is well-founded. Half of the people killed in road accidents were not wearing seatbelts despite annual buckle-up campaigns, said Public Citizen president Joan Claybrook. ``It's not like we've solved the problem of the unbelted passenger,'' she said.
^REUTERS