ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, November 16, 1996 TAG: 9611180044
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
International automakers joined forces with domestic automakers Friday and agreed the government should change a testing requirement to allow them to install airbags that deploy with less force.
The consensus, reached during a two-day conference in Canada, puts more pressure on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to change the test.
Airbags deploying at up to 200 mph have been blamed for the deaths of at least 19 adults and 30 children. The Big Three domestic automakers have been pushing to decrease airbag deployment force by 20 percent to 30 percent, arguing that less-forceful airbags would mean fewer deaths and injuries.
Through their industry group - the American Automobile Manufacturers Association - the domestic automakers have argued that less-forceful airbags cannot be installed unless the government changes its test, which requires the bags to deploy fast enough to cushion an unbelted male dummy when a car is crashed into a wall at 30 mph.
Domestic automakers want the test changed to a so-called sled test. They say that test would better approximate crashes in the real world - which mostly are of less force but take place over a longer time - and would allow them to retest vehicles quickly enough to install the new bags in six months.
Now that the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers has signed onto the domestic automakers' approach, the two present a united front in building pressure on the government. The two groups issued a joint statement late Friday.
The NHTSA has been reluctant to change the test because officials were uncertain whether it would mean fewer adult lives would be saved in crashes. The bags have saved 1,136 lives from 1986 to 1996, according to an agency study.
Agency officials instead proposed the current test be changed to allow the male dummy's chest to take 80 times the force of gravity instead of the current 60 times, which would allow the airbag to inflate more slowly, three industry sources said.
However, domestic automakers - both in private meetings with NHTSA and at the Toronto conference - argued that approach would allow them to put less-forceful airbags in only about one-third of their vehicles, several industry sources familiar with the meetings told The Associated Press.
One AAMA official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed those two suggested test alternatives have ``really been the debate all along.''
The automakers also argue that NHTSA's proposed change to the test would take them 18 months - three times as long as their proposal - and would be more costly.
In August, the safety agency proposed a series of measures including larger warning labels to reduce airbag deaths - especially those of children. The agency did not propose reducing the power of airbags at that time, but it could issue such a rule anyway under an emergency procedure known as an interim final rule.
LENGTH: Medium: 60 linesby CNB