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Auto industry to make cars safe against SUVs

The auto industry is set to announce a new plan tomorrow to redesign vehicles in a way that mitigates the dangers sport utilities and pickups pose to passenger cars.

The plan will essentially require automakers to make side airbags standard equipment on new vehicles by 2009. Those bags protect passengers' heads in side-impact collisions. It will also require changes in sport utilities and pickup trucks to make them less dangerous to the occupants of passenger cars.

"This is a historic voluntary commitment," said Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an industry lobbying group that oversaw the joint safety effort.

"You've never had a global organization bringing together automakers on three continents, coupled with the emergence of new safety technology and consumer demand for safety," he said. "All these events are coming together at the right time."

But Brian O'Neill, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said, "It's a necessary first step, but it doesn't solve the problem. There's more work to be done yet."

Under pressure from Jeffrey Runge, who runs the National Highway Traffic Safety administration, automakers began working together earlier this year on a plan to address the dangers that SUVs and pickups pose to car occupants.

The insurance institute, funded by car insurers, agreed to join the effort.

In September, a group of industry engineers sent a plan to automakers for their approval, and several companies said then that they supported it. O'Neill said the group was exploring further design changes beyond those that would be announced.

Shosteck said the industry was "still ironing out the final details" but added that the deal was so close that a teleconference had been scheduled for tomorrow.

The industry's plan for an announcement was first reported on Monday by <>.

Shosteck said "virtually 100 percent of the vehicle market" would be involved in the agreement.

Under the plan, automakers will agree to performance tests that will essentially be impossible for most vehicles to pass unless they have side impact airbags that offer head protection. Just under half of 2004 models offer side air bags, but many are not standard equipment and some only offer protection to the chest area.

Half of new vehicles will undergo the tests by 2007 and all by 2009.

Automakers are also expected to agree to implement design changes, by 2009, to make the rail frames of SUVs and pickups match up better with cars in head-on collisions.

"The requirements we developed for pickups and SUVs required that their front-end, energy-absorbing structures must significantly overlap the car's bumper zone," said O'Neill.

Such changes could reduce the risk of death by 28 percent for car occupants in head-on collisions with SUVs or pickups, he added.
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