Some side-impact crash tests done by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety have indicated that although there can be exceptions to the bigger-is-better rule, fatality statistics show that, over all, small cars are more dangerous.
Some of the other proposed rules deal with side impact safety, requiring ways for people to better hear electric cars and data recorder standards.
Conducting these two side impact tests as certified tests provides insights into car safety during side impacts.
Up front, seat-mounted side air bags provide torso protection in a side impact.
Nearly 7,000 Americans a year die just in side impact collisions involving two vehicles.
But curtain bags over the doors, to protect heads in a side impact, are not available.
The proposed methodology is applied to vehicle crash-worthiness design optimization for side impact with structural weight and front door velocity under side impact as objectives.
If you can give people side impact air bags and make them standard, the customer sees that as a value".
Shielding passengers from injury in a side impact is a more vexing problem than protecting them in a frontal collision.
In the side impact, the side door beam is responsible to absorb the most possible kinetic energy.
These results can be used to advantage in weight-critical automotive side impact crashworthy applications.
