General Motors recently announced two definite steps forward and a delayed one on the front airbag's safety.
The really big step forward is that head curtain airbags will become an option in the 2001 Saturn line-up of cars.
The medium step forward will be the arrival of dual-stage front airbags in the 2001 versions of five full-size carlines this fall.
The stutter step involves an airbag suppression system for the passenger seat using sensors that was supposed to debut mid-2000 in a Cadillac Seville. It is now put off for at least a few months.Head curtain airbags are not new, of course, but the fact that they'll be available in a car as inexpensive as a Saturn certainly is. Previously, head or side curtain airbags could be added only on considerably more expensive vehicles.
The aim of a head curtain air bag is to reduce the risk of head and neck injuries in a side impact crash, which is worthwhile when you consider that side impact crashes are second, following frontal impacts as a source of injury or death to a vehicles' occupants.
According to Jim Ulrich, the vice-president of engineering for Saturn, side impact crashes account for about 30 per cent of the crashes in small and mid-sized cars, which would include his company's S and L series models.