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Side Air Bag Out-of-position Occupant Development and Field Experience One Year Review Washington, DC, October 25, 2001

Side Air Bag Out-of-position Occupant Development and Field Experience One Year Review Washington, DC, October 25, 2001. Side Air Bag Out-of-position Development and Field Experience. Background Side air bags are:

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Side Air Bag Out-of-position Occupant Development and Field Experience One Year Review Washington, DC, October 25, 2001

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  1. Side Air Bag Out-of-position Occupant Development and Field ExperienceOne Year ReviewWashington, DC, October 25, 2001

  2. Side Air Bag Out-of-position Development and Field Experience Background Side air bags are: • Designed to provide supplemental safety benefit without introducing significant additional risk of occupant injury. • Available in several different types: • Seat mounted (combination head and thorax or thorax only) • Door mounted (combination head and thorax or thorax only) • Roof side rail mounted • Combination of the above

  3. Side Air Bag Out-of-position Development and Field Experience Background • Using available field data, all indications are that side air bag systems, including those in DaimlerChrysler vehicles, are providing a safety benefit without any serious unintended consequences. • “In all crashes investigated with a side air bag deployment, the air bag provided an increase in occupant protection.” 2001 ESV paper number 246 submitted by NHTSA; Air Bag Crash Investigations • “It is encouraging that, to date, no instances of serious injury directly attributable to the side air bag have been observed in Canada.” 2001 ESV paper number 442 submitted by Transport Canada; The Crash and Field Performance of Side-Mounted Airbag Systems • “Preliminary results suggest that properly restrained infants and children occupying age appropriate child seats may receive some protective benefits from side air bags . . .” 2001 ESV paper number 420 submitted by Transport Canada; Side Airbags: Evaluating the Benefits and Risks for Restrained Children

  4. Side Air Bag Out-of-position Development and Field Experience TWG Guidelines Experience • The TWG guidelines do not appear to present a problem for today’s roof side rail mounted systems. • It is unclear how the guidelines will influence future roof side rail systems designed to further mitigate the potential for ejection. • For door mounted side air bags, the “lying on seat with head on armrest” position typically presents the greatest challenge. • For seat mounted side air bags, the “rearward facing child” (peek-a-boo) position typically presents the greatest challenge.

  5. Side Air Bag Out-of-position Development and Field Experience TWG Guidelines Experience • For example, meeting our internal child out-of-position guidelines for a seat mounted system leads to a reduction in NHTSA LINCAP performance for the passenger. Based on our modeling, satisfying the TWG “peek-a-boo” position would further reduce the effectiveness as shown.

  6. Side Air Bag Out-of-position Development and Field Experience TWG Guidelines Experience • Because of variability in dummy and air bag interaction, there are challenges in designing DaimlerChrysler seat and door side air bag systems to conform with the TWG guidelines while providing a real world benefit. • In addition, finding the worst case set-up can be very difficult to achieve. 3 year old forward facing on 3” booster 3 year old rearward facing (peek-a-boo) 6 year old forward facing on 3” booster Data for seat mounted head and thorax system

  7. Side Air Bag Out-of-position Development and Field Experience Conclusions • Additional field experience with side air bag systems, designed before and after the TWG guidelines, is necessary to assure proper tradeoffs are made within the guidelines between real world side air bag effectiveness and risk reduction. • The reference injury values appear sufficient at this time. • Without the demonstrated need, converting any research values into reference values would produce additional and unwarranted challenges without the associated real world benefits.

  8. Side Air Bag Out-of-position Development and Field Experience DaimlerChrysler Commitment to the TWG Guidelines • All DaimlerChrysler side air bag systems with a design freeze after February, 2002 will be designed to conform with the TWG guidelines. • All internal out-of-position testing has been modified to adopt the TWG guidelines. • All field experience, to date, on DaimlerChrysler side air bag systems has been positive.

  9. Side Air Bag Out-of-position Development and Field Experience Recommendations • Review TWG guideline out-of-position tests on an annual basis and update them to reflect real world safety need and benefit. • Do not upgrade any research values to reference value status until there is a demonstrated need and the research values are biomechanically sound. • Revisit the need for the NHTSA child advisory regarding the dangers of side air bag systems. • Ensure that any TWG guideline changes provide a minimum of 30 months lead-time to allow for adequate product design and development time.

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