'Smart' air bags may fail

By Jayne O'Donnell, USA TODAY

Automakers are warning that "smart" air bags required starting next year are, in effect, so dumb they could kill or injure children and fail to protect adults in crashes.

At least three major air-bag suppliers have pulled smart-bag technology off the market for more development. One of them, Siemens, says it doesn't have any system that's foolproof and doubts whether anyone else does. "Any (smart) system can be compromised," says Siemens' David Ladd.

Automakers are scrambling to find new suppliers, but are skeptical that the few remaining can manufacture enough reliable smart systems.

As a result, what are billed as safety devices could be harmful.

"Safety devices shouldn't hurt anyone," says Ford Motor safety expert Priya Prasad. He says that Ford, once optimistic, has lost some confidence in the systems' reliability.

Conventional air bags "are 99.99% reliable," says Toyota regulatory affairs director Chris Tinto. "These (smart) systems aren't anywhere near that."

The bags, required by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, are referred to as "smart" because they are required to sense what size passengers they're protecting and adjust inflation force accordingly. The bags are supposed to turn off and not deploy if the passenger is a young child.

Earlier air bags inflated the same for everyone. That was too much for some: At least 215 people, including 133 children, have been killed since 1990.

NHTSA chief Jeffrey Runge acknowledges that "this is an extraordinarily expensive rule that is taxing the creativity and ingenuity of auto engineers." But NHTSA has refused to halt the phase-in of smart bags, beginning next September on 2004 models.

Automakers are finalizing '04s and have to use what's available now. They say they can't wait for foolproof systems and still meet the deadline. Some systems that pass NHTSA tests can be tricked, automakers and suppliers say.

• Infants and children in child seats can be mistaken for adults because of the weight of the child seats or extra tension in the safety belts, according to a videotape DaimlerChrysler gave regulators showing systems it tested.
• Small adults who recline, prop legs on the dashboard or fold a leg underneath themselves can take enough weight off seats to be mistaken for kids.
• A child in the front passenger seat can be misidentified as an adult if an adult next to the child shifts his or her weight toward the child.
• Humidity and water on a seat can cause malfunctions, too.

NHTSA proposed last week allowing automakers to put smart bags into 20% of their '04 models instead of 35%, but won't decide for at least a month. NHTSA has declined automakers' requests to change some tests and to allow expanded use of passenger-side air bag on-off switches. Instead, it will remind motorists to seat children in back and explain how small adults should sit to avoid tricking smart bags.