GM opens rollover test facility

General Motors Corp. on Tuesday unveiled a $10-million crash test facility that will help the automaker study rollover crashes.

The Detroit-based company also said that by 2012 it would make rollover-enabled air bags a standard feature on all its retail vehicles.

The air bags currently are used on 43% of GM’s trucks.

GM said it planned to perform 150 rollover tests next year at its Milford Proving Grounds to help it better understand rollover crashes, which in 2005 accounted for about 4% of all crashes but 33% of occupants of passenger vehicles who were killed on the nation’s highways.

Engineers demonstrated a rollover test during the facility’s unveiling, which was attended by Nicole Nason, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

A red Buick Rainier approached a single-track ramp at more than 40 mph, went airborne, landed on its side and slid into a large net anchored by retractable tension cables.

GM hopes to find ways to keep people from being ejected in rollovers and develop sensors for rollover-enabled air bags, which can help reduce injuries and prevent ejections.

Rollover-enabled air bags stay inflated for five seconds, compared with the basic head curtain air bag, which offers protection for about three-tenths of a second.

Bob Lange, the automaker’s executive director for safety, said electronic stability control and rollover air bags would increase the cost of GM vehicles.

But, he said, “we think the value of providing this increased level of safety is well worth the added product cost.”

GM said it planned to install electronic stability control on all its vehicles by the end of 2010.