ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, November 23, 1996 TAG: 9611250157
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
THE NHTSA will also allow car owners to have air bags turned off, in response to worried consumers.
To calm widening fears about deadly air bags, federal safety officials said Friday that they will require strong warning labels in new cars and allow bags in older cars to be disabled.
Those two moves are included in a five-step plan to make air bags safer offered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Other provisions would allow owners of some vehicles to temporarily turn off bags, allow automakers to lessen their powerful impact and set the stage for the phase-in of a new generation of ``smart'' air bags by the 1999 model year.
While safety experts say all of these are good ideas, the plan was short on specifics and lacked a timetable for making key provisions happen.
The plan will put bright labels in new vehicles warning that air bags can kill children under 12. The labels are required within 90 days.
But Friday's proposals will not immediately end a continuing debate over air bag safety that has lingered since 1969 when General Motors discovered that a child near a dashboard could be killed by what was then called an ``air cushion.''
Air bags have been credited with saving 1,500 lives. But the bags, which deploy from the dashboard at 200 mph, have been blamed for the deaths of 31 children and 20 adults, mostly women drivers under 5-foot-4, in slow speed, otherwise survivable crashes.
Because of the deaths, the auto industry and now NHTSA have decided the bags' explosive force needs to be weakened by 25 percent to 30 percent.
Final technical decisions on controversial changes in future bags have been delayed until January after consumers, safety advocates and auto makers have a chance to submit comments in writing to NHTSA.
Friday's plan floats two technical options for taking some of the punch out of air bags, hopefully next year in time for the 1998 model year, and calls for a mandate of a phase-in of so-called smart bags by 1998 for the 1999 car model year.
NHTSA has not yet defined what it will expect the so-called smart bags it wants by 1999 to do. Currently, several types of smart technology in the works, but most are years away from reality, auto makers say.
Meeting NHTSA's timetable ``would be a stretch'' for auto makers, said Robert Lange, General Motor's engineering director for vehicle development.
He said NHTSA will have to decide if it wants more simple weight sensors, dual speed bags that deploy at low and high speeds depending on the severity of a crash, or more advanced technologies that will adjust their punch to the size and position of an occupant.
Currently, depending upon the make and model of a vehicle, air bags adjust to deploy at 106 to 200 mph, but it is the same speed in any crash and no matter the size or position of the occupant.
The most controversial part of NHTSA's plan would allow mechanics to disconnect air bags, a practice that is now illegal. The move is a dramatic reversal for NHTSA, which led the push to make air bags mandatory.
Thus far, NHTSA has granted permission to have an air bag deactivated only seven times, and only medical concerns or because a vehicle did not have a back seat for a rear-facing child safety seat.
NHTSA had hoped to expand the use of cut off switches in new cars, but auto makers and safety advocates protested. They feared consumers would forget they turned the switches off.
Instead, NHTSA said it would issue a final rule extending its existing policy which permits switches in some vehicles, trucks or sports cars that don't have back seats.
The disconnect plan would deal with the hundreds of consumers who have written NHTSA asking that their air bags be disconnected. NHTSA fears if it doesn't do something to relieve the concerns of those who own 42 million older vehicles with air bags, Congress could may step in make use of air bags optional.
After 1998, it will be virtually impossible to buy a vehicle without dual air bags because they become fully mandatory then.
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