NHTSA accelerates new car safety rule

With so much attention recently being given to toy safety, an important new rule by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has not received the attention it deserves and warrants a closer look. Earlier this month, the car-safety regulator announced new standards requiring car makers, for the first time ever, to provide head protection in side-impact crashes.

NHTSA does so by expanding its current safety tests that in essence require vehicles to be built to protect people in side collisions with other vehicles. Now, NHTSA will also require tests to protect people in more severe side collisions. NHTSA will add a pole test that simulates a vehicle sliding sideways and hitting a tree or a utility pole. This is a severe test as it concentrates most of the load on one spot. Additionally, NHTSA will now require more than just average-size male dummies to be used in gathering crash-test data. The agency is also mandating petite female dummies because crash data indicate that 34 percent of all serious and fatal injuries to near-side occupants in side impacts occurred to occupants 5 feet 4 inches or less.

NHTSA says side-impact crashes account for 28 percent all fatalities, of which the majority involve a brain injury. The agency says its new requirements, which will be phased in beginning in 2009 and in all model-year vehicles by 2013, will save more than 300 lives a year and prevent nearly 400 serious injuries.

NHTSA’s new standards don’t specify the kind of technology automakers must use, although it’s likely that car makers will continue to use some form of side-curtain airbags and air bags protecting the chest and abdomen to meet the standard.  Some car makers began installing side air bags in 1997 and the car industry said that head-protecting side air bags were available in 84 percent of all 2006 model year vehicles. A voluntary industry agreement in 2003 calls for all 2009 model year vehicles to provide enhanced head protection in side impact crashes involving cars and trucks.

Based on this voluntary agreement, NHTSA estimates that the cost of the new rules will  increase the cost of the average vehicle by $33.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety currently uses a more stringent side-impact crash test than NHTSA, representing a 3,300-lb SUV or light truck. The Institute also uses dummies that represent a small adult female or a 12-year-old adolescent in that test.

Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, welcomes NHTSA's long overdue upgrade of the side test. It will complement the IIHS's test and ultimately serve consumers better since  manufacturers are more likely to engineer cars to perform well over a range of conditions.

More information
To learn more about car safety, read “Crash Test 101.”
To see how your car performs in IIHS tests, view crash test videos.
Read more about cars in our Cars Blog.