By CATHERINE STRONG
WASHINGTON (AP) - The nation's three largest automakers say their latest, less forceful air bags - designed to reduce injuries to small adults and children - cannot pass a proposed government crash test standard that the automakers say is too tough.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposes reinstating a crash test standard that requires an air bag to cushion an unbelted dummy when a vehicle is driven into a wall at 30 mph.


Federal safety officials believe reinstating the old test standard will make air bags more effective and safer in high-speed or severe crashes for unbelted adults.


But the automakers argue that, in order to meet the 30-mph test, air bags will have to be made more powerful again which will increase the chances that children and short adults will be injured in all types of crashes.

Air bags have been blamed for 135 deaths - mostly to children and shorter women - in low-speed accidents the victims otherwise should have survived, according to government statistics.


Government data also shows less than 1 percent of crashes involve a change of speed of 30 mph or greater.

General Motors Corp. officials said Thursday that they ran the 30-mph test with one of their vehicles and the newer, less powerful air bag failed to adequately cushion the unbelted crash dummy. A Ford Motor Co. official says the company performed similar tests with the same result while DaimlerChrysler has said for months its less-powerful air bags on Chrysler and Dodge vehicles could fail the proposed government standard. Starting last year, all three automakers installed air bags with 25 percent to 35 percent less force.

The agency's proposed 30-mph unbelted test ``would simply take us back to where we were before, and we know we don't like that outcome,'' said Bob Lange, GM's director of engineering safety.

``If we add too much energy (to the air bag), we create the potential to severely injure people who would have been essentially injury free,'' Lange said.

The government is not convinced that automakers need to add more power to air bags to comply with the test, which was a government standard until late 1997.

The test ``is necessary to insure protection for people in the real world in the most difficult crashes,'' said NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson.

NHTSA has tested 12 vehicles with redesigned air bags and found that only two would not have met the test standard, the Dodge Neon and the Acura RL. The agency also said the tests showed manufacturer redesign of air bags has resulted in slightly reduced protection of large adults.''

Both the agency and automakers agree the new air bags reduce the risk they posed to smaller passengers.
Automakers believe the less powerful air bags are doing a good job protecting adults in severe crashes.

Lange said he has not seen any crash reports that indicate the so-called depowered air bags are not powerful enough to cushion adults in higher-speed crashes. Other automakers agree.``We believe that de-powered air bags provide very good protection in severe crashes,'' Lange said.

Automakers already must comply with a 30-mph vehicle crash test into a wall using dummies wearing seat belts, and they agree that test is necessary.


But Lange calls the test for unbelted dummies ``an extremely severe test'' that could force automakers into air bag designs that sacrifice safety for smaller passengers.


For example, in the real world, the test translates into the unbelted driver of a Dodge Neon ramming the back of a parked Dodge Neon at 60 mph, or two Dodge Neons hitting each other head-on with each car traveling at 30 mph.

AP-NY-06-10-99 1803EDT

Copyright 1999 The Associated Press.