The U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety are saying automakers must do more to protect back-seat passengers from death and serious injury in severe crashes. The IIHS are using data from frontal crashes that result in injuries to back-seat passengers to develop a new front crash test that evaluates crash protection for both front- and rear-seat passengers. Test crashes are being conducted this year.
IIHS are urging automakers to put some of the same safety technologies used for front-seat passengers in the rear of vehicles, such as seat belt pretensioners, which take the slack out of the belt at the start of a collision, and force limiters which allow the belt webbing to unwind slightly as the forward motion of a body pulls against the belt in a collision. The institute would also like automakers to put in airbags that deploy from the roof and prevent a rear-seat occupant from smashing into the back of the front seat, and seat belt airbags—which were tested around 2010 by automakers including Ford, and seat and safety suppliers including BF Goodrich and JCI, and are now used on Mercedes vehicles.
IIHS President David Harkey says his research institute has confidence “that vehicle manufacturers can find a way to solve this puzzle in the back seat just as they were able to do in the front. Manufacturers have put a lot of work into improving protection for drivers and front-seat passengers. Our moderate overlap front crash test and, more recently, our driver-side and passenger-side small overlap front tests are a big reason why. We hope a new evaluation will spur similar progress in the back seat”.
