U.S. to Review Side-Impact Safety

A federal safety agency said Monday it would review whether more protection is needed in cars for passengers involved in side-impact crashes, granting a petition filed by an advocacy group.

“The current federal standard for side-impact protection is too weak and is long overdue for strengthening,” said Judith Stone, president of the petitioning group, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.

Officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have said for months that they favor toughening requirements for protection on the sides of vehicles. Granting the group’s petition, officials said, means taking a closer look at the feasibility of doing so.

More than one-third of the serious to severe injuries suffered in crashes last year resulted from side-impact crashes, Stone said.

She added that big sport-utility vehicles, full-size vans and large pickups--so-called light trucks--are “causing a rising toll of deaths and serious injuries, especially in side-impact crashes with smaller, lighter” cars.

Side-impact crashes account for roughly a quarter of all deaths in car and light-truck crashes, surpassed only by deaths in frontal collisions, which account for about half.

Although 30% of registered vehicles are light trucks, a recent government study showed that half of all deaths in side-impact crashes occur when the striking vehicle is a light truck.

A stronger side-impact standard for cars, requiring crash testing at 30 mph, is already in place, and the same standard is being phased in for light trucks in the next year. Both consumer groups and auto makers favor tightening the side-impact standards even more, but there have been disputes about the best way to do it.

Gerald Donaldson, senior research director for the Advocates group, said the traffic safety agency should introduce an optional stricter standard for auto makers that would promote the use of side air bags in cars to protect the chest and pelvis.

One possible test would be to crash the side of a car into an upright pole. Even though compliance with such a test would be voluntary, Donaldson believes auto makers would compete to do well on it, prompting better side-impact protection.

However, some safety experts say the NHTSA already has a side-impact test in its consumer information crash program that rewards auto makers for using side air bags.

Although normally found in expensive European cars, side air bags are increasingly built into other cars. General Motors Corp. has side bags in six models and will add 15 more models by the end of next year. Ford Motor expects to provide them as standard or optional equipment in all vehicles in the next three years.