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Evaluation of the effect of air bags in multi-year light truck NCAP tests
Technical Paper
2001-06-0095
Sector:
Language:
English
Abstract
The New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) has evaluated the
crashworthiness of numerous vehicles since 1979. Each year selected
models were frontally crashed at 35 mph into a fixed barrier. Due
to increased interest by the public in vehicle safety as part of
their car-buying decisions, NHTSA has recently undertaken an
expanded program of consumer information on vehicle safety issues.
As part of this program, an analysis was performed to determine the
effectiveness of light-truck driver air bags to reduce the risk of
severe injury as measured by the head and chest injury responses of
selected NCAP tests. The light trucks tested most frequently were
analyzed to obtain reliable estimates of air bag effectiveness. The
vehicles were tested with all the restraints available on that
model, which in the case of the early years were safety belts, and
in the latter years were a combination of safety belts and air
bags.
Analysis of NCAP data for multi-tested vehicle models for the
period 1979 through 2000 indicated a significant reduction of 56%
for light trucks in the risk of severe trauma for drivers in
air-bag-equipped vehicles.